tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82685517551235311512017-12-13T14:31:13.134-08:00Thoughts on the RoofEditorials on a variety of topics. Often taking the sceptical view. Often to do with New ZealandWilliam Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-78520940090071502542017-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:002017-12-13T11:10:17.562-08:00Pasture Irrigation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>We are having a debate in New Zealand for and against irrigation.&nbsp; It really boils down to a debate on our dairy herd.&nbsp; With irrigation, you can put cows on land that otherwise would not support them and our dairy herd increases and with it the pollution of our environment. True, there are some concerns about irrigation itself.&nbsp; For instance, the need to dam a stream in some cases to provide the water or the misuse of irrigation water.&nbsp; Actually, using more water than is needed is a thing of the past for any farmer worth his air conditioned tractor.&nbsp; Sensors tell the farmer just how much water he should apply.&nbsp; The primary concern is the expansion of our dairy herd which is possible with irrigation and the potential for&nbsp; environmental pollution.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>To come out for or against irrigation&nbsp; may be good for radio sound bites but as with most cases in the affairs of man, the devil is in the details.Clearly we need irrigation for our farmers to fill in the gaps left by nature. Even in the best areas, there are periods without rain.&nbsp; A farmer needs reliable inputs to be able to run his business.<br /><br /></div></div>Equally clearly, if we can not find ways of farming that preserve our environment then the crude sledge hammer method of reducing herds and restricting where they can graze must be taken.&nbsp; The question is, can we have dairy herds and not pollute.&nbsp; The answer may be yes for some areas and no for others and will depend, to quite a large extent, on the details of how we farm.<br /><br /></div>The core of the problem is to be able to apply the waste output of the cows back on to the land in a way, in a concentration and at the right time such that it constitutes a valuable fertilizer and not an environmental pollutant. If this can be done, darying is no longer a source of pollution.<br /><br /></div><a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2017/11/dirt.html">Throughout history,</a> societies that trashed their soils, declined and disappeared.&nbsp; One factor in trashing soils is not returning nutrients to the soil that are extracted.&nbsp; In so far&nbsp; as is possible, nutrients must be returned in an organic form that benefits the soil organisms.&nbsp; Quite clearly, the urine, manure and spilt milk from a dairy herd constitutes a valuable resource for the enhancement of the soil.<br /><br />That is not to say that chemical fertilizer should not be used but as you will see, much less of them can be used if farming methods are tweaked. <br /><br /></div>If farming remains a process of plow, add chemical nutrients, sow the seeds and irrigate then our soils will degrade, pollution will be rampant and we will go the way of many previous societies that mined their soils&nbsp; instead of farming them.<br /><br />It takes a lot more 'smarts' to farm in a way that improves the soil, reduces&nbsp; inputs, increased water infiltration, improves the bottom line and leaves you with a much better farm to pass on to your children or to sell than when you started.<br /><br />Let's look at some of the tools we have available.<br /><br /></div><b>Riparian Zones</b></div>Fencing off streams and encouraging the growth of trees, shrubs and grasses between the fence and the stream is a great help.&nbsp; Not only does it stop the cows from entering the stream and urinating and defecating into it but the roots of the vegetation of the riparian zone take nutrients from the water table which is slowly flowing toward the stream.&nbsp; However, it has been reported that 70% of the nutrients entering the streams comes from the very small feeder streams and ditches.&nbsp; It is simply not possible to fence off every little feeder stream.<br /><br /></div><b>Composting Barns</b></div><a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/composting-barns.html">Composting barns </a>use deep layers of wood shavings or coarse saw dust as bedding and the cows are bedded down at night and have free access to the barn to escape inclement weather.&nbsp; The bedding is stirred mechanically every day, keeping it aerobic.&nbsp; It has been found that cows prefer such an environment to bed down even choosing it ahead of a straw-lined byre.&nbsp; The composting process produces heat which reduces the feed need of the cows and a rich compost eats up pathogens.&nbsp; The compost captures all the nutrients from the waste of the cows including N and S which in an <i>anaerobic</i> system go off as the gases NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>S.<br /><br />The bedding can be applied to the fields at the correct concentration and correct time which most benefits the soil and the pasture and hence causes no pollution.&nbsp; Some research needs to be done on what portion of the effluent of a cow is released while in such a barn compared to what proportion is released out on the pasture*.&nbsp; Do they mainly urinate and defecate at night or in the day, while they are grazing or when they are chewing their cud.&nbsp; this would give an indication of how much of the nutrient stream could be captured by a composting barn.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Great job for some long suffering masters student</i></span> <br /><br /></div><b>Bio-Gas Generators.</b></div>Finally, a farm in Southern New Zealand is using the waste produced in the milking shed* to generate bio-gas.&nbsp; The biogas is use&nbsp; to produce electricity. The waste heat from the motor which drives the generator is used to heat the water used in the milking shed.&nbsp; This combination makes for a very efficient system, energy wise.&nbsp; The effluent from the biogas generator contains almost all the nutrients in the waste stream since only C and H have been taken off as biogas (and some of the S). &nbsp; As with compost bedding it can be applied to the fields when and in what concentrations most benefits the pasture and hence least pollutes the environment.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>More work for that long suffering student.</i></span><br /><br /></div><b>Managing the Pasture</b></div>We have now removed a portion of the waste stream with Riparian zones, compositing barns and biogas generators.&nbsp; Let's see what we can do out on the pasture.&nbsp; There is a fantastic book by David R Montgomery called <u><i>Growing A Revolution; Bringing back our soils</i></u>.&nbsp; In it he describes visiting farmers all over the world who have independently come up with a way of farming.&nbsp; The methods they use would be familiar to any farmer before the advent of cheap chemical fertilizers but each method is updated in light of modern knowledge. Farming this way results in an improved bottom line, slashed pollution to the environment, reduced farming costs, increased infiltration of rain, continually improving soils&nbsp; and the sequestering of significant amounts of carbon in the soils.&nbsp; It also, due to the greatly increased organic content of the soil, results in the capture of much of the Nitrogen when a cow urinates. The urine is soaked up by the organic material giving the soil organisms time to scavenge the nitrogen.<br /><br />Before we go off half cocked and reduce one of our most valuable industries, we must pay attention to the details.&nbsp; Farming can not be allowed to degrade our environment but there are farming methods which address this problem.&nbsp; The devil is in the detail. </div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-9991805553204070812017-11-28T10:54:00.002-08:002017-12-11T00:40:39.368-08:00The ice pump<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">It has been a bit of a mystery why the floating ice around Antarctica has been increasing in area over the last few decades despite global warming.&nbsp; After quite a bit of research and some reference to some well known physics, there is a pretty plausible theory/story to explain this.&nbsp; It is called the ice pump.&nbsp; First we need a fact or two before we tie it all together.<br /><br />1.&nbsp; Sea level is rising but only some of this rise is&nbsp; due to the melting of land ice.&nbsp; The remainder is due to the expansion of the water of the oceans as it heats up.&nbsp; The heat is being gradually stirred into deeper and deeper water.&nbsp; The salty deep 'circumpolar water' around the Antarctic is&nbsp; a case in point.<br /><br />2.&nbsp; H<sub>2</sub>O expands when it freezes, contracts when it melts.&nbsp; It makes intuitive sense that as you apply pressure to ice, it will melt at a temperature below zero degrees centigrade.&nbsp; Indeed this is observed experimentally.&nbsp; If you have ever skated you have used this phenomenon.&nbsp; the blades of an ice skate are very narrow and apply high pressure to the ice which melts under the blade and allows the skates to slide over the ice.<br /><br />&nbsp;<img alt="Image result for table melting point of ice under pressure" class="irc_mi" height="272" src="http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/images/melting_pressure.gif" style="margin-top: 63px;" width="320" /><br />&nbsp;100MPa equals about 9950m so one interval across the horizontal axis is about 2480m.&nbsp; At this depth the melting point of ice is depressed about 2.4 degrees C.&nbsp; As you can see from the following illustration, the depth of the bottom below sea level in West Antarctica is well below 2000m<br /><br /><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-636" height="209" src="http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Antarctic_profile_hg-300x209.png" title="Antarctic_profile_hg" width="300" /><br /><br />3.&nbsp; A few glaciers on East Antarctica and most on West Antarctica are on a retrograde slope.&nbsp; The ice is so heavy that it has depressed the land and the land bottom below the ice gets deeper and deeper as you go inland. In East Antarctica some outflowing glaciers have carved deep channels well below sea level. &nbsp; Most of West Antarctica land is way below sea level.<br /><br />So let's put all this together.<br /><br />The deep circumpolar water over-tops the sill at the outlet of some of the glaciers.&nbsp; It is salty which keeps it below the surface, fresher water despite the fact that it is a little warmer.<br /><br />Being heavier, it flows down the sloping sea bottom under the floating ice until it comes to the grounding line.&nbsp; There it comes into contacts with ice.&nbsp; Not only is it salty and warm but ice melts at below zero under pressure so this salty bottom water melts the ice at the grounding line making the grounding line retreat landward.<br /><br />The glacier is moving seaward under the pressure of ice from the interior but grounding lines have been observed to be retreating so clearly the melting is&nbsp; faster than the flow of ice seaward.<br /><br />As the grounding line retreats it is at greater and greater depth and hence at a higher pressure where ice melts at lower and lower temperatures.&nbsp; The melting becomes greater for a given quantity and temperature of circumpolar deep water flowing down the slope.<br /><br />When you mix the water from the melting ice with this&nbsp; salty deep polar water, the mix is fresher and hence lighter than the deep water.&nbsp; It flows up the slope of the ice ceiling in a sort of up side down river and flows out on to the surface of the ocean.&nbsp; The deep water is often described as seeping under the ice or some such gentle term.&nbsp; We can see that as the light super cooled water flows out on to the surface of the ocean, deep water is being sucked in under the ice.&nbsp;&nbsp; The more water flowing out on the surface the greater the 'suck'.<br /><br />As the lighter water flows upward into a zone of reduced pressure, it is below the freezing point of ice at that depth.&nbsp; It begins to freeze and for some reason freezes in thin sheets called platelets which form a sort of mushy layer below the sea ice ceiling.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the ice pump.&nbsp; It is in effect taking ice from the grounding line and depositing it in shallower water under the ice ceiling.&nbsp; The deeper the grounding line, the more effective the pump.<br /><br />The sea ice around the Antarctic continent disappears every year or two so this ice from the grounding line is lost to the continent.&nbsp; ie contributes to sea level rise. <br /><br />The water which flows out on to the surface of the ocean, either at the edge of the ice shelf or into a lead is still super cooled and freezes readily, especially as it comes into contact with Arctic air which is well below freezing.&nbsp; Here is one small part of&nbsp; the explanation of the increasing ice around Antarctica.&nbsp; Any leads which open up due to wind and currents, fill rapidly with ice&nbsp; and hence can not close up again if the wind changes.<br /><br />As the ice is eroded from underneath the glacier, the floating part of the glacier deflates and increases the slope of ice from the interior, seaward.&nbsp; The glacier speeds up, pushing more ice seaward.&nbsp; This is another part of the expansion of the floating ice. <br /><br />The increased flow of ice seaward should push the grounding line seaward but apparently, at present,&nbsp; melting trumps glacier flow.&nbsp; In addition as the glacier deflates it floats up off the ground.&nbsp; This also contributes to moving the grounding line landward.<br /><br />There are a couple of further wrinkles to this story.<br /><br />The rising water flowing up the ice ceiling apparently, in at least some locations, carves out up side down valleys in the ice and the light water collects in these and flows seaward.&nbsp; This will, of course, reduce the surface area where this light up-flowing water is in contact with the surrounding water.&nbsp; It is not quite a pipe but will reduce mixing compared to a sheet flow.<br /><br />In addition, these valleys have reduced buoyancy compared to the surrounding ice so will weaken the ice shelf, contributing to it's break up.&nbsp; If, for instance, you had one valley running along the middle of an ice shelf, the surrounding ice would have a force on it trying to make the ice tip toward the valley from both sides.<br /><br />Another factor in the expansion of the surface area of floating ice is that the air flowing off the Antarctic continent is apparently getting stronger and this will tend to push ice outward (North).&nbsp; As mentioned, leads opened up will rapidly freeze, stopping the ice from moving back south.<br /><br />The winds flowing clockwise (looking down on the continent) around Antarctica are apparently also increasing in velocity.&nbsp; They push on the ice.&nbsp; Anything moving in the southern hemisphere and especially if it is near the pole, is veered to the left by Coriolis.&nbsp; To the left is away from the continent.&nbsp; Again we have ice moving North and leads freezing over, stopping the ice from returning south.<br /><br /><br />The bottom line of all this is that for a while, we would expect the floating ice to increase in area around the Antarctic due, ultimately, to the warming of the deep salty circumpolar water.&nbsp; At the same time, we should expect to see coastal glacier deflating and the floating ice shelves breaking up.&nbsp; Already two of the Larson Ice shelves along the Arctic peninsula have disintegrated.&nbsp; They are the Northern most Antarctic ice shelves.&nbsp; The third Larson Ice Shelf may be on its way and the rest should follow in time.&nbsp; This will remove the plug and allow inland glaciers to flow more quickly and we will see if this movement can reverse the retreat of the grounding line.&nbsp; This is unlikely as the glacier deflate and float upward.<br /><br />What is interesting is that we have probably passed a tipping point in the break down of glaciers which are grounded way below sea level.&nbsp; When the salty deep circumpolar water contacts ice at relatively shallow depths, it will erode the ice but the flow of ice seaward may be able to balance the melting.&nbsp; However, when this circumpolar water is contacting ice at greater depth, its erosion ability is greatly increased due to the suppression of the melting temperature of the ice at greater depth and hence pressure.&nbsp; The removed ice is transfered to the underside of the ice shelf at shallower depth and this ice is lost each summer as it floats off into the ocean.&nbsp; Even if the deep circumpolar water cooled to its previous temperature, the depth effect has so increased the ability of this water to melt ice that the process would likely continue.&nbsp; Since there is no prospect that such a cooling will occur, it is doubly likely that the ice sheets which are grounded well below sea level will collapse.<br /><br />The disintegration of the Antarctic ice which is grounded below sea level is now probably inevitable, even if we were to stop all green house gases tomorrow. <br /><br />I wouldn't be buying any coastal property<br /><br /></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-23040766699774957722017-11-10T12:17:00.004-08:002017-11-22T20:47:21.291-08:00Dirt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is a book review of David R Montgomery's book <i><u>Dirt</u></i> which he wrote before <u><i>Growing a Revolution</i></u>.&nbsp; In <i><u>Growing a Revolution</u></i> he describes how a few farmers scattered far and wide across the planet have worked out a better way of farming which restores the soil with all the benefits this brings.&nbsp; In this book <u><i>Dirt</i></u>, he describes how civilization after civilization,with very rare exceptions, have destroyed themselves by trashing their soils.<br /><br />Clearly there are other factors involved in the demise of civilizations but at the core, if you can't feed your population, you are on a slipery slide.<br /><br />A common sequence Prof Montgomery describes is a move into a new valley and a build-up of farming.&nbsp; With a reliable source of food, human populations&nbsp; increase at a truly astounding rate.&nbsp; In the words of one of my favorite authors, Richard Dawkins,&nbsp;<i> "If ever there is an increase in food production, population will rise until the previous state of misery is re-established." </i><a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2009/02/malthus-pyramid-schemes-starvation-and.html">It is not inevitable but very very common.&nbsp;</a><br /><br />In a few countries the population increase and with it the destruction of ever more sensitive soils has been reversed and would you believe it, we are fighting it tooth and nail. (see above link). <br /><i></i><br /><br />As the bottom land is completely occupied, the new generation of farmers move up slope and farm ever steeper land.&nbsp; When the plow is used, the die is cast.&nbsp; Plowing moves soil down hill and the removal of ground cover greatly accelerates natural erosion by rain and wind which, moves the soil even faster down hill.&nbsp; Soils either accumulate on the valley bottoms and/or are washed into the stream or river to be exported to the sea.<i> </i><br /><br />&nbsp; <span style="font-size: small;">For instance, early in American (European) farming, they plowed straight up and down the slopes, would you believe???&nbsp; Contour plowing was a "great innovation" and even this "innovation" only slowed down the destruction. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>&nbsp;</i></span>The Americans eventually reached the great central Loes plains, leaving destruction behind them and proceeded to destroy these soils as well.<br /><br />On a visit to Virginia I saw many stone gates leading into a young forest with no drive way visible.&nbsp; When I asked the locals about this curious occurrence, they told me that these were abandoned tobacco and cotton farms.&nbsp; The farmers had moved west when the soil ran out.&nbsp; In fact, it was common for a farm to last only for a decade or two when the farmer had to move west.&nbsp; This, more than anything might explain the constant western movement of the Americans into lands owned by the first people.<br /><br />On a recent visit to Otterton, in Devon to see the <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/the-otter-river-beavers-of-england.html">return of the beavers</a> we were told that Otterton was once a sea port.&nbsp; Soil erosion had filled the estuary and Otterton is now land locked.&nbsp; We found out later that this is a very common situation around the UK.<br /><br />Just last month, we took a trip to Bulls in North Island (New Zealand)&nbsp; There we saw plowed fields all over the place and the streams ran brown with silt.&nbsp; Our streams here in Canterbury are the same when there is anything above a very gentle rain.<br /><br />the present zeitgeist is climate change and we are finally waking up to its dangers.&nbsp; The more serious crisis may just possibly be the destruction of our soils. This is exacerbated by our short term rush to the maximum short term profit rather than a greater long term profit.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-47911943885289958852017-10-13T01:27:00.001-07:002017-11-10T12:31:29.862-08:00Carbon dating and the Math<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">One would have to be a hermit not to have heard about carbon dating.&nbsp; This is the dating, for instance, of a piece of wood in an old building or a piece of charcoal in an archaeological dig.<br /><br />At a first approximation, the physics is pretty straight forward.&nbsp; An atom consists of a nucleus with electrons whizzing around the nucleus.&nbsp; Which element the atom is depends on the number of electrons and the number of electrons, in turn, depends on the number of protons in the nucleus.&nbsp; In a normal, unionized atom, the number of electrons and protons are equal and the atom is neutrally charged.<br /><br />The glue that holds these positively charged protons together in the nucleus (remember like charges repel each other) are the neutrons.&nbsp; Don't ask me how they do this.&nbsp; The explanation is way above my pay grade.&nbsp; Very roughly speaking, there are the same number of neutrons as protons but this can vary.&nbsp; Carbon, for instance, can exist in a state with 6protons and 6 neutrons for an atomic mass number of 12. It can also exist in a form with 6 protons and 8 neutrons for a mass number of 14.<br /><br />These two types are called isotopes of Carbon.&nbsp; There is a third one but it is not needed for this explanation.<br /><br />Some isotopes are stable, some are not (why is also above my pay grade).&nbsp; In the case of Carbon, 12 is stable, 14 is not.&nbsp; <br /><br />Carbon 14 disintegrates into Nitrogen 14 with the ejection of an electron from one of it's neutrons.&nbsp; The neutron becomes a proton so the atom is now a new element with 7 protons and 7 neutrons, hence <sup>14</sup>N.<br /><br />No one knows when any individual Carbon 14 atom is going to disintegrate.&nbsp; There is a very small probability at any one moment but when you have a lot of <sup>14</sup>C, you can predict how many atoms will change to <sup> 14</sup>N in any given time period.&nbsp; This results in something interesting which has been observed experimentally.&nbsp; If you know how much of the radioactive element you have, you will observe that half of it will break down in a given time, referred to as it's half life.&nbsp; The half life of various radioactive isotopes varies from tiny fractions of a second to many millions of years.<br /><br />In the case of <sup>14</sup>C, it's half life is 5730 years give or take 40 years.<br /><br />In 5730 years you will have half left, in another 5730 years, a quarter of the original amount, in one more half life, one eighth of the original amount and so forth.<br /><br /><br />So now we need the math for this.&nbsp; We will work out what I call the straight forward formula and then we can change it around (solve for other parts) so that each component of the formula becomes the subject.<br /><br /><b>First a note on mathematical notation</b>.<br /><br />What is meant when you see a symbol.<br /><br />xA means multiply the A by x.&nbsp; If A is 2 and x is 3 then xA is 6<br /><br />A<sup>x</sup> means multiply A by itself x times.&nbsp; If A is 2 and x is 3 then A<sup>x</sup> is 8.&nbsp; In words, A is raised to the xth power.<br /><br />However, in the symbols A<sub>x,&nbsp;</sub> x is not an operator.&nbsp; ie, it doesn't say to do anything.&nbsp; It is a label.&nbsp; It means the xth A.&nbsp; For instance you could have A<sub>1</sub>, A<sub>2</sub>, A<sub>3</sub> etc.&nbsp; This is the first, second and third A.&nbsp; Or Ao and At which for our purposes will mean A at time zero and A at a specified future time. <br /><br />There is a special one in Chemistry.&nbsp; I'll use Carbon since this is what we are talking about.&nbsp; For instance <sup>14</sup>C.&nbsp; This means the carbon atom with 14 nucleotides. &nbsp; ie, The sum of neutrons and protons adds up to `14.&nbsp; There also exist <sup>12</sup>C and <sup>13</sup>C.&nbsp; Of course both have 6 protons or it wouldn't be Carbon.&nbsp; The number of neutrons varies.<br /><br />And one more in Math.&nbsp; If the subscript is after the word log such as log<sub>5</sub> then it means log to the base 5.&nbsp; If only log is used, it is understood it is to the base 10. &nbsp; That is to say, log = log<sub>10</sub> and if ln is used it is to the base <i>'e'.&nbsp; </i>Don't worry about it, we don't need '<i>e</i>'.&nbsp; I only mention it because it is on your little hand held computer and you might wonder.<br /><br />Lets go back to the basics.&nbsp; Every half life period, (h) the amount is halved. In the case of Carbon, the half life is 5730 years but half lives for other isotopes varies hugely. &nbsp; Lets call the amount we start with as A<sub>o</sub> (A at time zero) and the amount we are left with as A<sub>t</sub> (A at some time t in the future).&nbsp; The amount we will have left after one half life is:<br /><br />1.&nbsp;&nbsp; A<sub>1</sub> = A<sub>o</sub>(1/2)<sup>1</sup><br /><br />After two half lives<br />2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A<sub>2</sub> = Ao(1/2)<sup>2</sup><br /><br />After three half lives<br />3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A<sub>3</sub> = Ao(1/2)<sup>3</sup><br />Remember 1/2 times 1/2 is 1/4.&nbsp;&nbsp; Multiply once more by 1/2 and you have 1/8.&nbsp; When you see a times sign between fractions, replace it in your mind with "of".&nbsp; then 1/2 x 1/2 becomes one half of one half.<br /><br />The 1,2 and 3 are the number of half lives that have gone by.<br /><br />4.&nbsp; So A<sub>n</sub> - A<sub>o</sub>(1/2)<sup>n</sup>&nbsp; or in words, to find the amount of a substance after n half lives have gone by, multiply A<sub>o</sub>, the initial amount, times 1/2 raised to the nth power. </div><br /><br /><br />Note that in the notation A<sub>x,&nbsp;</sub> x means the amount at time x expressed in half lives.<br /><br />Also note that even if the n is not a whole number and therefore would take a wee bit of higher math (knowing logarithms), to solve, your computer does this with no problem.&nbsp; Your high school computer can solve, for instance, 6<sup>3.22</sup> without raising a sweat.<br /><br />Suppose we start with one gram of a radioactive substance and one half life has gone by.&nbsp; We simply multiply 1gram times 1/2<br /><br />Suppose 4 half lives have gone back.&nbsp; We multiply the one gram times (1/2)<sup>4</sup>.&nbsp; that is to say by 1/2 times 1/2 times 1/2 times 1/2 which equals 1/16th times the original amount.<br /><br />Now suppose we know what the half life (h) of a particular isotope is.&nbsp; Say it is 10 years, for simplicity.&nbsp; Say 30 years have gone by.&nbsp; Obviously 3 half lives have past.&nbsp; In other words n, the number of half lives equals the time elapsed (t) divided by the Half life (h).&nbsp; In this case n = 30/10 = 3.<br /><br />5.&nbsp;&nbsp; n=t/h.<br /><br />And, as I said, it doesn't have to be a whole number.&nbsp; If the half life is 10 years and 75 years have gone by then n = 75/10 = 7.5.&nbsp; With simple math we would have a problem raising a number to a fractional exponent but your computer has no such problem so don't sweat it.<br /><br />You can see where this is leading.&nbsp; Since n=t/h, we can substitute t/h into the formula where we see n.<br /><br />The radioactive decay formula then becomes<br /><br />6.&nbsp; A<sub>t</sub> = A<sub>o</sub>(1/2)<sup>t/h </sup><br />or in words, to find the amount of radioactive material remaining after time t, multiply A<sub>o</sub>, the initial amount, times one half raised to the power of t/h.<br /><br /><br />Good heavens!&nbsp; I forgot to tell you where the radioactive Carbon comes from.&nbsp; If it's half life is only 5730 years, in about 50,000 years there will be so little of it that carbon dating is out of the question and the world has been here for over 4b years.&nbsp; Clearly, <sup>14</sup>C must be being created somewhere.&nbsp; the '<i>Where</i>',, is in the upper atmosphere.&nbsp; As cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere, they are so energetic that they cause some nuclear reactions and one of these is to change some<sup>14</sup>N into <sup>14</sup>C.&nbsp; It is a very small amount but enough to be detected in living material with modern methods so we have a clock we can use.&nbsp; When an organism dies it stops taking up carbon and the clock starts to tick.&nbsp; If we&nbsp; analyze it sometime in the future, we can know when it died (up to about 50,000 years). <br /><br />Now we can do what a mathematician calls solving for A<sub>o</sub> or for t or for h.&nbsp; In other words we re-arrange the formula so that each of these terms in turn become the subject of the formula (ie. is by itself on the left and everything else is&nbsp; on the right). I'll tell you what each variation of the formula is good for as we rearrange them.<br /><br />The basic principle of solving for a factor (one of the letters) in a formula is that we can do anything we want to one side as long as we do the same to the other side.&nbsp; After all if I have a formula that 7 = 3+4, if I multiply both sides by, say, 5, the formula is still correct.&nbsp; Of course we don't just do random things to both sides of the formula. The trick is to do something that gets us closer to the solution we are looking for.<br /><br />One other thing.&nbsp; At one point in the procedure I am going to have to take a log of both sides.&nbsp; Even if you don't understand logarithms, this should pose no emotional problem since I am doing the same to both sides.&nbsp; Then, however, you are going to have to take my word for a 'log identity'.&nbsp; If you are into logarithms, you will understand why the identity holds but if not, don't sweat it.&nbsp; It is true.&nbsp; This identity is:<br /><br />log<sub>a</sub>b<sup>c</sup> = clog<sub>a</sub>b.&nbsp; Incidentally, the inverse of the left side of this formula is a<sup>c</sup> =b.&nbsp; That may give you a clue why the identity works.<br /><br />In words:&nbsp;&nbsp; log to the base 'a' of 'b' raised to the 'c'th power equals c times the log to the base a of b.<br /><br />So let's start.&nbsp; I want to end up with a formula for each of the terms, in turn, on the left side of the equation.<br /><br />The original equation is<br /><br />A<sub>t</sub> = A<sub>o</sub>(1/2)<sup>t/h</sup><br /><br />Let's divide each side by (1/2)<sup>t/h</sup>.&nbsp; Note that this cancels out the (1/2)<sup>t/h</sup> on the right side and leaves it on the left in the denominator*.&nbsp; It is more conventional to have the subject of the formula on the left so we will exchange them.&nbsp; After all if 7 = 3+4 then 3+4 = 7.&nbsp; Our formula then becomes<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The bottom part of a fraction</i></span>. <br /><br />A<sub>o</sub> = A<sub>t</sub> divided by (1/2)<sup>t/h</sup>. Don't know how to get my computer to write this so I will leave you to write it down on a piece of paper.<br /><br /><b>Use</b><br />So what is this formula good for.&nbsp; It was noted early on in the use of carbon dating that there were some discrepancies.&nbsp; With artifacts for which the exact date was known, the Carbon date did not agree.&nbsp; The hypothesis was that the rate of <sup>14</sup>C production in the upper atmosphere might not have been constant over the years.&nbsp; So cores were drilled into very old trees, the rings were separated and carbon dated.&nbsp; The above formula was used to work out the concentration&nbsp; of carbon 14 which had been present for each year&nbsp; that a ring was laid down.&nbsp; And indeed it was found that the true curve diverged by a small but significant amount over time from the theoretical curve.&nbsp; When the true curve was used, the dates all fell into place. <br />&nbsp; <br /><br />Now let's work on t and h.&nbsp; The first thing I will do is to divide both sides by A<sub>o</sub>.&nbsp; This cancels A<sub>o</sub> on the right side and leaves us with<br /><br />A<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>o</sub> = (1/2)<sup>t/h</sup><br /><br />Now I'll take the log of both sides<br /><br />log (A<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>o</sub>) = log[(1/2)<sup>t/h</sup>]<br /><br />Remember our identity.&nbsp; I can take t/h to the front of the right side so<br /><br />log(A<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>o</sub>) = t/h(log1/2)<br /><br />Now it is simple.&nbsp; I simply divide both sides by log1/2 and we have t/h by themselves on the right side.&nbsp; You take it from here.&nbsp; Isolate t and h.&nbsp; If you do it right you will find that<br /><br />t = [hlog(A<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>o</sub>]/[log(1/2)]<br /><br />and<br /><br />h = [tlog1/2}/[log(A<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>o</sub>}<br /><br /><b>Use</b><br />How about the formula for t.&nbsp; This is pretty obvious.&nbsp; Now that we have the needed correction of the production of 14C over the past , we can date any object that was once alive up to about 50,000 years.&nbsp; This is carbon dating.<br /><br /><b>Use</b><br />How about h.&nbsp; We can't actually wait around for 5730 years to see when we have half of a quantity of radioactive carbon left.&nbsp; We can, thought, observe the rate of disintegration on a shorter time span.&nbsp; Using the h formula we can work out the half life of each radioactive isotope and some of them are multi millions of years.<br /><br /><b>It is never that easy</b><br /><br />There are always complications.&nbsp; Charcoal, for instance, if it is in ordinary soils or even in a cave can be colonized by micro-organisms.&nbsp; If in active soil, the micro-organisms will have a modern carbon signature.&nbsp; One has to first clean the charcoal of the modern material in order to get the correct date for the charcoal<br /><b> </b><br />Add to that, that we have been spewing carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuel.&nbsp; This is old carbon and hence contains no Carbon 14.&nbsp; On the other side we have had nuclear tests in the air.&nbsp; They have added Carbon 14 to the air.&nbsp; For future anthropologists, they will have to take this into account.<br /><br />Other types of radioactive dating have their own special requirements.&nbsp; For instance when a rock melt cools, crystals form and just as a solution of salt and sugar, as it crystallizes, will&nbsp; produce crystals of pure salt and pure sugar, the&nbsp; crystals in a melt are of one type of molecule.&nbsp; If one of these is a radioactive species and it's end product is known you can measure the concentraton of both and calculate when the rock&nbsp; was melted.&nbsp; <br /><br /></div></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-33432599625645980552017-10-03T12:16:00.000-07:002017-10-06T14:21:58.213-07:00The Anthropocene<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is a book review of William F Ruddiman's book, <u><i>Plows, Plagues and Petroleum.</i></u>&nbsp; It's premise is that the Anthropocene* didn't start some 200 years ago with the beginning of the industrial revolution and hence the burning of fossil fuels but actually started 6000 to 8000 years ago.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The age in which humans have started to have a significant effect on the climate</i></span><br /><br />In the popular literature you will often find comments such as '<i>we live in a very unusual period.&nbsp; Our climate, compared with previous times, has been remarkably stable for thousands of years'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </i>That is not to say completely stable.&nbsp; We have had the so called little ice age for instance and the medieval warm period but compared to the climate as read in ice cores, this has been a period of great stability.<br /><br />Prof. Ruddiman basis much of this contention on information from ice cores.&nbsp; In Antarctica, cores have been drilled which reach ice which was deposited around 800,000 years ago.&nbsp; Over this period the alteration between glacial periods and interglacial periods* has had a cycle of about 100,000 years.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html">Here is a most amazing graphic of the past cycles</a>.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Note that I say glacial and interglacial period, not ice age.&nbsp; Strictly speaking, despite popular usage, an ice age is the approximately 3m year period we are in with approximately 50 or so glacials and interglacials.&nbsp; If we want to use the term ice age, for instance, for the time between the previous interglacial (the Eemian) and the present interglacial (the Holocene) then we need another name for the approx. 3m year period of alternating cold and warm periods that we are in the middle of right now.</i></span><br /><br />What has caused these warm and cold periods has been pretty well established as the Milankovitch cycles.&nbsp; There are three of these which have different periodicities.&nbsp; There is the tilt of the earth&nbsp; which varies between 21.2 and 24.5 degrees from the plane of it's orbit.&nbsp; it is called Obliquity for some reason.&nbsp; It's period is about&nbsp; 41,000&nbsp; years.&nbsp; There is the eccentricity of the orbit which varies from round to elliptical and back with a period of 100,000 years* and there is the orientation of this ellipticity in space which will result in the earth being closest to the sun in summer or closest in winter.&nbsp; This has a period of 23,000 years and is called axial precession<br /><br />*&nbsp; <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It is a little more complicated than this.&nbsp; For instance Eccentricity has a number of components.&nbsp; It is not a simple sin wave but that will do for now. </i></span><br /><br />Adding these three cycles together you get a variability in the strength of the sun on the surface of the earth and most important, in the mid to high latitude area of the Northern Hemisphere (where most of the land is).&nbsp; To go into a glacial (glacial period), the insolation (Amount of radiation reaching the earth's surface) must be low in the Northern Hemisphere summer.&nbsp; This allows snow to remain over the summer and to be increased during the next winter. Then the more land that is covered continually with snow, the more solar radiation is reflected back into space and we have a feedback which accelerates the process.&nbsp; I won't go into how glacials end but you can go <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/end-of-ice-ages.html">here</a> and <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/continental-glacier-meltdown.html">here</a> for some ideas on how this occurs.<br /><br />Over many many glacial-interglacial periods it has been observed that Carbon dioxide rises as the ice melts (some controversy on why) and a little before maximum melt, Carbon dioxide begins to fall.&nbsp; Following this, with the odd up-tick CO2 falls continually.&nbsp; At a certain level of Carbon dioxide, combined with the right part of the Milankovitch cycle, snow begins to accumulate, bringing on the start of the next glacial.<br /><br />Since the Milankovitch cycle is the sum of three cycles, each with a different period, each glacial-interglacial cycle is somewhat different.&nbsp; Looking at these cycles, the two which are most like the present one that we are in are the 4th and the 9th back from our present one. <br /><br />In both these cycles (and in other less similar cycles) Carbon dioxide began to fall and just continued to do so, starting a little before maximum melt and falling to about 185ppm.<br /><br />Our recent (Holocene) interglacial started some 20,000 years ago by definition since that was when the ice sheet was at it's greatest extent but melting really got under way about 11,500 years ago.&nbsp; And as with all other cycles, Carbon dioxide began to rise.<br /><br />Then, as usual, just before maximum melt, Carbon dioxide began to fall. <br /><br />If it had continued, then at a certain point, snow would have begun to accumulate again.&nbsp; Apparently the 'epicenter' of ice accumulation is on the high lands of Baffin Island and somewhat later in Labrador.&nbsp; It didn't happen.&nbsp; Around 6000 to 8000 years ago, the concentration of Carbon dioxide began to climb in complete contrast to other cycles.&nbsp; It wasn't enough to fully counteract the downswing in the&nbsp; Milankovitch cycle&nbsp; but greatly slowed down the cooling.<br /><br />It had almost reached the level for snow accumulation when there were two catastrophic events in human History.&nbsp; One was the Black Death which scythed down huge numbers of people* in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.<br /><br />*&nbsp; <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It is often noted that this was the beginning of the rise of the rights of the serfs since they were in such short supply that they could demand better conditions in exchange for their labor.</i></span><br /><br />The second was the invasion of South America by the Spanish.&nbsp; The Spanish brought with them a plethora of deadly diseases for which the local population had no resistance.&nbsp; Disease spread through south, central and North America and decreased the population*, by some estimates, by 90%.&nbsp; In both plagues forests grew up on deserted farm lands and drew down Carbon dioxide below the level needed for the beginning of snow accumulation.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Contrary to popular opinion, archeology has now confirmed that North America was populated by a large number of people, many of them living in what we would characterize as&nbsp; advanced civilizations.</i></span><br /><br />There is some very interesting evidence that glaciation&nbsp; started.&nbsp; Around the high lands of Baffin island there is a 'halo' of dead lichen with young new lichen beginning to grow here and there.&nbsp; What happened?<br /><br />Apparently, snow began to accumulate and last through the summer and occupy more and more area and of course smothered the lichen.&nbsp; Then&nbsp; along came the industrial revolution and the snow retreated again leaving this halo of dead lichen.&nbsp; We were that close to beginning, once more, to slide into a glacial.<br /><br />So what did man do to slow the advent of a new glacial for long enough for the Industrial Revolution to take over and really up the concentration of this green house gas.<br /><br />First there was the burning down of forests to simply roast and catch animals. Areas burnt off, and especially if burnt off regularly, became grass lands which attract grazing animals and in which it is much easier to hunt. &nbsp; In Australia, this probably started around 50,000 years ago when man first reached that continent.&nbsp; Then as agriculture started, forests were cleared to plant crops.&nbsp; An early technique was to simply ring bark a tree and then plant a fire at the base once it had died and dried out.&nbsp; As the bronze age and then the iron age took hold, we could simply fell the trees.<br /><br />Very soon after that, the plow was invented.&nbsp; We have seen the tremendous damage the plow can do in modern times with the destruction of the soils of the great plains in America.&nbsp; These were reservoirs of huge amounts of carbon which the plow released into the atmosphere.&nbsp; If you travel through the Middle East you see clearly all the exposed rock.&nbsp; The soils there have not only released their carbon but have been washed into the sea.&nbsp; Farming with the plow is mainly responsible.<br /><br />In the Far East the cultivation of rice in ponds was developed.&nbsp; Anaerobic ponds give out large amounts of Methane which is a very powerful green house gas.&nbsp; It oxidizes to the less potent Carbon dioxide and so stays around in a less toxic form.&nbsp; This development reversed the methane trend.&nbsp; Of course to build the extensive rice ponds, often terraced up the sides of mountains, you first have to eliminate the forests.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-31355429760142098032017-10-01T15:01:00.000-07:002017-11-20T12:10:25.822-08:00Composting barns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I've just read an article on <a href="http://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-farm-health/us-cows-happy-in-compost">composting barns</a>&nbsp; in our local farming magazine.&nbsp; We are re-inventing the wheel but that is OK.&nbsp; I saw this system in 1989 in South Africa and they had been using it for some time.&nbsp; So what are they.&nbsp; First a little background science.<br /><br />You can classify the break down of organic material into simpler substances which are available for the growth of plants, into two main types.&nbsp; This break down can occur aerobically or anaerobically.&nbsp; The results are different.&nbsp; With anaerobic break down, the processes are less energetic and two significant by-products are ammonia, NH<sub>4</sub>, and Hydrogen sulphide, H<sub>2</sub>S, (which in the air oxidizes to Sulphur dioxide and water.&nbsp; SO<sub>2</sub>&nbsp; H<sub>2</sub>0). Both Ammonia and Hydrogen sulfide are gases and go off into the air.&nbsp; In doing so, they&nbsp; take with them the valuable nutrients Nitrogen (N<sub>2</sub>) and Sulfur (S).&nbsp; <br /><br />Aerobic processes are far more vigorous since the strong oxidizer Oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>) is present and only produce Carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) and water.&nbsp; In aerobic break down a whole ecology of microfauna build the available nutrients into their body mass. Aerobic processes can use cellulose and lignin as a source of Carbon and energy*.&nbsp; In anaerobic processes, both are refractory. As long as the source of organic carbon lasts, the waste products of each trophic level are built back into body mass by the primary producers*.&nbsp; Finally in this system, as organic carbon runs out, nutrients are released in a form that plants can use.&nbsp; The ecology runs down and the final product left is Humus which has some interesting benefits for the soil.<br /><br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>&nbsp; In a photosynthesis system, the primary producers are plants.&nbsp; In the sea, they are primarily single cell algae and sea weed.&nbsp; In a compost pile they are micro-organisms and if the source of carbon and energy is wood (cellulose) then the micro-organisms which produce cellulase, the enzyme that can cut off the sugar mollecules from the cellulose are the primary producers.</i></span><br /><br /><br />In a composting barn, you provide a source of carbon in the form of saw dust or wood shavings. You could also use pelleted paper or any other source of cellulose.&nbsp; Cellulose is an interesting substance.&nbsp; It is a poly-sacaride.&nbsp; In other words a chain of sugar molecules joined together in an insoluble form.&nbsp; No multi-celled animal can digest this material.&nbsp; Some bacteria, on the contrary, produce cellulase*.&nbsp; While algae are the primary producers in the sea, cellulase producing micro-organisms are the base of the food chain&nbsp; in a cellulose rich compost.<br /><br />*&nbsp;<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Enzymes are named for the substance that they can catalyze the use of.&nbsp; Hence the enzyme that helps metabolize sucrose would be called sucrase while the enzyme that metabolizes cellulose is cellulase. </i></span><br /><br />Of course the cellulose is not enough for these micro-organisms.&nbsp; They need the other nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and so forth to build their bodies.&nbsp; They scavenge these from the environment and they themselves become food for a whole range of grazers who build these substances into their bodies.<br /><br />As a rough rule of thumb, each level in the trophic chain can incorporate about a tenth of the material from the level below it.&nbsp; A ton of phytoplankton can make a tenth of a ton of Krill which can make a hundredth of a ton of whale.&nbsp; The remaining 90% at each transfer goes back into the soup to be used again by the primary producers.<br /><br />As long as there is a source of energy, such as sunshine in the case of phytoplankton or cellulose in the case of a compost pile, all these nutrients are re-incorporated into biomass.&nbsp; When the energy source runs out, there is a net release of nutrients as the various micro-organisms feed on each other but with no energy and Carbon source to power&nbsp; the uptake of the released nutrients*<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This is why it is so bad to mix saw dust into your soil.&nbsp; All the free nutrients will be scavenged until the saw dust is used up.&nbsp; Then nutrients will be released and the plants can start to grow again.</i></span><br /><br />So how about composting barns.&nbsp; In these barns there are a number of requirements.&nbsp; First, you need a thick layer of cellulose as bedding.&nbsp; The urine and dung of the animals living in the barn (or visiting it) is absorbed by the saw dust or wood shavings.&nbsp; The farm we visited in South Africa used the coarse saw dust from a saw mill.&nbsp; But that is not sufficient.&nbsp; The bedding must be kept aerobic.&nbsp; In Africa, where I first saw this method, they were growing chickens.&nbsp; This is possibly easier than growing cows because the urine of birds is almost solid.&nbsp; Cows, by contrast, produce copious amounts of urine.&nbsp; Labor in South Africa at the time was not expensive and the saw dust bedding of the chickens was stirred each day by hand.<br /><br />In the case of a cow shed, one would have to have a mechanical method of stirring the bedding.&nbsp; Cows go for milking and in some systems, go to graze during the day. giving a perfect time to aerate the bedding.<br /><br />Note that the metabolism of all these wee beasties in the compost give off heat just as you and I do when we metabolize.&nbsp; The bedding is warm and it has been reported that given a choice, cows will bed down in these barns in preference to staying outside or going into stalls with straw on the floor.<br /><br />As you can imagine, ventilation is of the greatest importance as well.&nbsp; No poisonous gases such as Ammonia or Hydrogen sulphide are given off but Carbon dioxide is produced.&nbsp; A sloping roof with vents at the top of the slope and good access for air from the sides is vital.&nbsp; The heat from the bedding and the not inconsiderable heat from the cows will create a natural convective circulation.&nbsp; It is also useful to place the watering troughs outside the shed wall so that the cows can access it but so it does not drip down into the bedding. Moisture is needed for the activity of the compost bed but too much makes it very difficult to maintain aerobic conditions.<br /><br />&nbsp;Also useful would be to have drop down curtains, especially on the side where the heavy weather comes from so that rain can be excluded from reaching the bedding.<br /><br />In really cold climate, one could employ a really large heat exchange ventilation systems which uses a <a href="http://info.zehnderamerica.com/blog/understanding-heat-exchangers-cross-flow-counter-flow-rotarywheel-and-cross-counter-flow-heat-exchangers">counter flow</a> system to pass outgoing air past incoming air to keep the heat while exchanging the air.&nbsp; Such systems are used on as smaller scale in air-tight houses today.<br /><br />When we talked to the farmer in South Africa who was using this system for Chickens, he mentioned as an aside how disease free his chickens were under this system.&nbsp; Apparently any pathogens that fall into the bedding are on a hiding to nothing.&nbsp; The environment is inimical to their survival and they are destroyed by the rich fauna of composters.&nbsp; Another article I read on cow sheds using this system emphasized the same phenomenon.<br /><br />To recap, what are the benefits of this system.<br /><br />* Animal welfare.&nbsp; The very fact that cows vote with their feet and choose to bed down on the compost in preference to staying out in the cold or going to a straw lined stall shows how beneficial such a system is.&nbsp; It is highly likely that in such a system, the amount of milk per unit feed would increase as the cows are using less energy to keep warm and are less stressed.<br /><br />* Nutrient retention.&nbsp; All the nutrients from the waste products of the cows is held in the compost to be later used to enrich the soil of the farm.&nbsp; Nitrogen and Sulphur do not go off as gases to be lost to the farm.<br /><br />* Odor control.&nbsp; The smell of a well aerated compost is faint and pleasant in great contrast to an anaerobic compost.&nbsp; The neighbors are not annoyed. <br /><br />* Disease control.&nbsp; There are strong indications that diseases are reduced with this system.&nbsp; It is likely, for instance,&nbsp; (though not yet reported on) that mastitis would be reduced when the cows bed down on a compost bedding.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-32831082450975879152017-09-04T12:58:00.000-07:002017-10-18T01:41:51.261-07:00Getting into orbit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Disclaimer:&nbsp; I&nbsp; ain't no rocked scientist.<br /><br />But it seems foolish the way were are getting into orbit.&nbsp; I understand why Elon Musk is going this rout.&nbsp; He wants technology that is capable of landing on Mars using it's rockets. Returning rockets to earth this way, as he is doing, is a good test ground for eventually landing on mars.&nbsp; But for others, who are sending payloads into orbit, it seems pretty costly and inefficient.<br /><br />Very likely I am wrong.&nbsp; My calculus is rudimentary and I base the following on simple (high school) physics a touch of Skunk Works philosophy*<br /><br />*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Skunk works&nbsp; buys everything it can off the shelf and only innovate those parts of a system needed for the particular function it wants to achieve.&nbsp; They are consistently within budget and beat deadlines.</span></i><br /><br />Why Calculus?&nbsp; If you want to calculate how far you have gone in a car traveling at a constant velocity you just multiply velocity times time.&nbsp; For instance, traveling at 50km per hour for two hours, you travel 100km.&nbsp; Sending a rocket into space gets a tad more complicated.<br /><br />You have a slightly decreasing gravity as you go into near earth orbit, a rapidly decreasing fuel and oxidizer load as you burn off fuel, a decreasing air resistance as you get higher&nbsp; but an increasing air resistance as your speed increases.&nbsp; Calculus allows you to combine&nbsp; these and other constantly varying factors to ultimately work out, for instance, how much fuel you need to get a given payload into orbit.<br /><br />While we are talking about complications, there are certain restrictions you have to observe.&nbsp; You can't accelerate too fast or you may damage your payload (people and instruments).&nbsp; You also must not achieve too great a speed too soon.&nbsp; If you do, you will burn up the outer skin of the rocket.&nbsp; The Black bird, for instance, cruising at an altitude of&nbsp; 85,000ft (16 miles)&nbsp; at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) has it's outer skin heat up to about 300degrees C.&nbsp; The only reason it survives is that it's skin is made of Titanium rather than an alloy of Aluminum.<br /><br />This introduces another problem into the mix.&nbsp; Sometimes it is useful to go to the extreme limit of a problem to get an instinctive feel for it.&nbsp; For a rocket to get into space it needs it's energy to overcome a number of factors.&nbsp; It must provide enough thrust to equal the weight of the rocket.&nbsp; More is needed to accelerate the rocket.&nbsp; For every kg of rocket weight it lifts by a meter, a kgm of energy is needed (9.8 joules).&nbsp; More still is needed to overcome air friction.<br /><br />Lets go to the extreme case and take a rocket that provides just enough thrust to hold it in position.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is not gaining altitude.&nbsp; It is expending energy to no useful purpose and the amount of energy equals the rate of energy being expended multiplied by the time it remains stationary.&nbsp; From this you can see that the faster it accelerates, the less total energy it will need just to support it's weight.&nbsp; The less energy that is wasted just supporting it's weight, the more energy goes into acceleration.&nbsp; However the above restraints limit how fast it can accelerate.&nbsp; All this means it needs more fuel.&nbsp; Remember this analogy.&nbsp; It will become important a little further along.<br /><br />Most rocket ships use an oxidizer, often oxygen itself and a fuel which is often Hydrogen.&nbsp; Already we are courting disaster.&nbsp; You either have to hold these gases at very high pressure to have enough on board to do the job or at very cold temperatures so that they liquefy.&nbsp; In both cases you need very special tanks that weigh a lot compared to the sort of tank that you have in your car for gasoline or diesel fuel.&nbsp; The high pressures or extremely cold temperatures also cause problems.&nbsp; If we could get rid of this sort of fuel and oxidizer we would be far better off.<br /><br />So what is the solution.&nbsp; Take the first stage of your rocket and strap on four, off the shelf, 747 turbo-fan engines.&nbsp; The PW4000 develops just under 45metric tons of force.&nbsp; So four of these = a little under 180 tons.&nbsp; Lets call it 150 tons to be conservative. Perhaps better still, use blackbird engines which can work at very high altitudes. In either case you are now using the air as an oxidizer just as all jet planes do and your fuel is the relatively benign jet fuel (very similar to kerosene or diesel fuel).&nbsp; look at the range of these aircraft.&nbsp; Just on the fuel in their wing tanks, a 747 can fly a third of the way around the globe at around 30,000ft.&nbsp; Pretty impressive, no?<br /><br />On second thought, there might be a third type of engine that I am not familiar with that would be better than either of these two.&nbsp; The regular 747 engine is designed to work best at around 30,000ft and the Black bird engine to work at super sonic speeds.&nbsp; What we need is an engine that will work at subsonic speeds at very high altitudes. <br /><br />Whatever engine you decide on, suppose that you don't have enough thrust now to send your rocket straight up.&nbsp; Lets strap on a pair of wings and take off from a runway.&nbsp; The shallower the angle of take off, the greater the load for a given amount of thrust.<br /><br />Why the wings.&nbsp; Not only do they allow you to lift payloads far greater than the thrust of the engines but also with far less fuel.&nbsp; Once again an example is useful to get a feel for the problem.&nbsp; Picture a 747 at cruising altitude neither gaining or loosing altitude.&nbsp; The thrust it needs and hence the rate of fuel use is far less that if it turned its nose upward and just hung there on its engines.&nbsp; With or without wings, you still have to lift x kgs up to y meters but the wings, to a large extent support the weight of the payload without needing this huge extra thrust just to support the weight. <br /><br />So where have we got to so far.<br /><br />Basically we have a stripped down 747, possibly with a modified wing for lift at high altitude and suitable high altitude engines.&nbsp; So how much weight have we eliminated.&nbsp; A 747 can carry 660 passengers in a one class configuration and very conservatively, each passenger weights 100kg.&nbsp; That is 75kg per person plus 25kg of baggage.&nbsp; As I said, this is very conservative.&nbsp; The load carried is therefore 66000kg or 66 tons and we haven't even considered the freight they carry independent of their passengers and all the fittings inside the fuselage needed to accommodate their passengers.&nbsp; I don't know how much this would amount to all told but it is considerable.&nbsp; Probably around 100 tons for passengers, freight and all the fittings the passengers require.<br /><br />So how do we carry the second stage (the first rocket stage) up to high altitude to be launched.&nbsp; We have three choices.&nbsp; We can sling the rocket under the plane, carry it on top the way they did with the shuttle when transporting it back to be refitted after it landed or we can carry it inside the fuselage.&nbsp; The two outside options probably require some reinforcing for the contact points.&nbsp; The inside option necessitates a bomb bay or an opening ceiling such as the Shuttle had.&nbsp; As odd as it seems, carrying the rocket on top might be the preferred&nbsp; option.<br /><br />So how do we launch.&nbsp; The mother ship flies toward the equator where the maximum earth rotation boost will be obtained (about 1000mph) gaining altitude as it goes.&nbsp; When at maximum altitude it turns to face East so that it is traveling in the direction of the earth's rotation.&nbsp; It puts on full power and does a vomit comet maneuver.&nbsp; That is to say it pulls up into a parabolic curve at zero gravity or even a slight negative gravity.&nbsp; At or before the peak, the second stage (first rocket stage) detaches and fires it's rockets.&nbsp; The mother ship veers out of the way of it's rocket blast.<br /><br />At this altitude we have lifted the weight of the second stage up, say 100,000ft, gone through by far the greatest part of the atmosphere and given the second stage a speed of, say 1500 mile per hour.&nbsp; We might be able to get away with some of those off the shelf solid state rockets and further eliminate the problematic hydrogen and oxygen.&nbsp; Initially, a couple of small canard nose wings might be sufficient to maintain direction.&nbsp; In the vacuum of space those little nose rockets would maintain direction.&nbsp; We need to achieve about 18,000 mph.&nbsp; The solid state rocket shells might then be cut loose or alternatively, they could be configured on the ground to be a useful component for the construction of a space station.<br /><br />The converted 747 flies (mostly glides) back to base.&nbsp; It can have another rocket attached be refueled and be back at the launch point&nbsp; in a few hours.&nbsp; We could probably launch 4 or 5 rockets each day this way from a single mother ship. <br /><br />We need costing by professionals far more qualified than I am but it just seems to me that we could get payload into orbit far cheaper than we are doing today.<br /><br />By the by, whatever happened to the idea of building a space station in the form of a bicycle wheel.&nbsp; With the appropriate spin, there would be one G at the rim and the astronauts would cease to have the weakening of their muscles and the wasting away of their bones.&nbsp; If you want to play around with some figures, centripital acceleration equals the square of the peripheral velocity divided by the radius of the circle.&nbsp; Put this equal to 9.8m per second squared and you can work out the details of your space station.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-83933812041377610422017-09-04T12:50:00.004-07:002017-10-18T01:43:05.389-07:00Electric VW combi, bulli, mini-van<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">VW is finally going to give us the electric Combi.&nbsp; Fantastic, but they must keep the faith.<br /><br />The original Combi was iconic for a number of reasons.<br /><br />* It was simple compared to other vans.<br />* It was easy to work on - easily repaired<br />* It was affordable<br />* It didn't change its styling from year to year.<br /><br />It should be not only possible but really easy to produce an electric Combi that excels in all of these.&nbsp; Styling is simple.&nbsp; Once it is designed simply don't change it.&nbsp; This is a vital factor in making a car become iconic.&nbsp; It also allows better pricing.&nbsp; It is expensive to re-tool your body presses each year.<br /><br />Electrics by their nature are far simpler that petrol cars.&nbsp; Make very very sure that everything that might have to be done on the car is very simple to do.&nbsp; The engine should be removable by undoing 6 nuts and sliding in a new or reconditioned one.&nbsp; Batteries should be exceedingly simple to replace (for instance when new technology results in an even better battery).&nbsp; CV joints should be doable by a modestly competent home mechanic and so forth. Go over the rest of the car (exclusive of the propulsion system) and make sure every part is easy to work on.<br /><br />And don't put in everything that bumps and squeaks.&nbsp; We are not looking for luxury in the combi.&nbsp; Just a good ride in an affordable vehicle which has great range and is inexpensive to maintain.&nbsp; At the very least, make all the flash options just that.........options.<br /><br />If your engineers simply can't resist a challenge than get them to work on&nbsp; a way to clad the whole roof with solar cells such that they all give their full power despite not being co-linear or being partially shaded.<br /><br />No one expects to be able to drive only on solar.&nbsp; That is unrealistic but what a nice bonus and a way to get you out of trouble if you have ignored the charge of your battery.&nbsp; It happens. <br /><br /><br />Keep the faith and you will sweep the market. &nbsp; Such a car is not for everyone but many of us want to have a smaller footprint.&nbsp; <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2016/11/the-car-i-want-to-drive.html">Many of us want a car</a> that we are proud to drive.<br /><br />And for #@%^&amp;; sake, don't make it <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2017/06/self-driving-cars.html">self driving</a>.&nbsp; We like to drive.&nbsp; Besides we don't want to be spied on all the time or worse still have our vehicle hacked and therefore come under the control of&nbsp; someone else.&nbsp; Even worse, we don't want the various secret service organizations to be able to decide to drive our car over a cliff or into a tree.&nbsp; In short, we don't want our car even to be connected to the WWW.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-34435744620764984672017-08-26T13:42:00.002-07:002017-12-10T14:15:08.267-08:00Restoring our soils<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is a book review of David R. Montgomery's book, <i><u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4p-kQ6D8aA">Growing a Revolution;</a> Bringing our soils back.&nbsp; </u></i>I highly recommend the original.&nbsp; Besides being a real eye opener, it's a good read.<br /><br /><br />If you prefer, here is the author talking about the book on Youtube<br /><cite class="_Rm">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4p-kQ6D8aA</cite><br /><br />Prof. Montgomery has traveled the world and documented the work of farmers far and wide who are using these techniques with amazing results.&nbsp; Even more amazing is that when there is one of these farms right beside another which uses "conventional methods" and the difference in production is blindingly obvious&nbsp; even at a casual glance, these so called conventional farmers who are using large inputs of agricultural chemicals, very often&nbsp; stick with their methods.&nbsp; Prof Montgomery suggests why this is.<br /><br />In his book you won't find reports of great research done by the agricultural departments of universities.&nbsp; No university can afford to do the research that has led to these methods.&nbsp; As the world becomes more and more of a corporatocracy, and multinationals find ever more inventive ways to <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90585218/government-seeking-to-close-multinational-tax-loopholes">avoid taxes</a>, government funds have dried up and almost the only source of funding remaining is from these same tax avoiding companies.<br /><br />No company is going to fund research that leads to less&nbsp; of their products being used.&nbsp; If, for instance, a universities agricultural department is being funded by a producer of Phosphate, they will think twice before even having an independently funded research project on site that will show that you can reduce or dispense (for a time) with more additions of phosphate.<br /><br />Let me quote a small section from the book.&nbsp; It regards Rattan Lal, a researcher who went to Africa and worked out methods to improve the agriculture of subsistence farmers.&nbsp; These methods are right in keeping with what is described in Montomery's book.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><i>"<b><span style="font-size: small;">Within two years of his departure from Africa, trees were growing through his experimental plots.&nbsp; The grand experiment was over.&nbsp; He'd figured out something that would work for subsistence farmers .&nbsp; So why were his findings all but ignored?</span></b></i></span><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Funders and aid agencies alike wanted breakthroughs and rapid revolutions, not gradual improvement of the soil.&nbsp; Commercial interests pushed to develop solutions that could be commodified, they wanted petrochemical products, not practices that anyone could adopt for free,&nbsp; No modern, forward-looking foundation or agency wanted to hear about mulching or growing a diversity of crops.&nbsp; Such simple answers did not - and still don't - fit the technophilic narrative of progress."</i></span></b> <br /><br />No, what is needed is demo farms in as many districts as possible who are willing to try out these methods, on at least&nbsp; one of their fields and keep at it for at least three years. <br /><br />The type of farming mentioned in the book, leads to&nbsp; a greatly reduced use of fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and fuel. Note I said reduced, not eliminated.<br /><br />What is reported in <u><i>Growing a Revolution</i></u> is the work of many farmers around the world, usually with no connection with each other.&nbsp; These farmers would qualify, by any definition, as true scientists, trying things and recording their results and trying again.&nbsp; There are variations on a theme but what is also amazing is that all these farmers have converged on the same basic realizations.&nbsp; It has taken many of these farmers decades to come to these methodologies.&nbsp; Mr Mongomery's book is an attempt to smooth the way for other farmers so they don't have to go through the same lengthly process.<br /><br />What then does Mr Montgomery claim that this sort of farming achieves.&nbsp; Actually, I should rephrase that.&nbsp; <u>What has he observed that farmers around the world <i>are</i> achieving with these methods.&nbsp;</u> And notice the emphasis on methods in the plural.&nbsp; While each method shows some positive results, these methods only truly revolutionize farming when used together. First the results of this type of farming.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Results of this 'new'&nbsp; type of farming</b></span><br /><br /><i><b><u> </u></b></i><br />#&nbsp; Reduced&nbsp; inputs including diesel, chemical fertilizers pesticides and herbicides resulting in greater profits even if yields only match "conventional<b>*</b>" farming.&nbsp; In fact, yields more often than not, rapidly (in a few short years), exceed those of chemical farming.&nbsp; Profit equals production minus inputs.<br /><br /><b>*</b> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">We now think of farming with chemical inputs as conventional since we are used to seeing this type of farming but it is actually a very new way of farming. When we get on to methods, you will see that many of the methods are very old school but modified by recent insights into the biology of soils. So called conventional farming necessitates large amounts of fossil fuel just to produce the materials used in farming.&nbsp; Add to this the fuel to run the tractor and you are right in the middle of unsustainability.&nbsp; Reducing these inputs has to be a good thing from a number of points of view.</span></i> <br /><br />#&nbsp; Increased infiltration of water into the soil and the&nbsp; corollary, reduced or eliminated&nbsp; surface run off, thus stopping the export of our soils into the ocean. The other corollary of more infiltration, especially with reduced evaporation is less dependence on irrigation and in the case of dry land farming (without irrigation) the difference between a crop and no crop.<br /><br /># Greatly reduced export of&nbsp; soil into the streams if there is a "weather bomb" and runoff does occur.<br /><br /># Elimination of wind erosion<br /><br />#&nbsp; Greater drought resistance since rain has infiltrated and soils are always protected by a cover crop and/or mulch, which decreases evaporation.<br /><br />#&nbsp; Greater flood resistance for the whole catchment since the soils can take up much more water without sending it straight down into the nearest water way.&nbsp; If a whole catchment of farmers adopted these methods, flood peaks down stream would greatly decrease and with it, the damage to downstream property.&nbsp; Once the water is underground, it flows much more slowly toward the sea. Not only are peak&nbsp; flows&nbsp; reduced but low water flows are increased as this water slowly percolates back into the river systems.<br /><br /># Water purified before flowing into the streams.&nbsp; When water flows through a rich organic soil containing reduced carbon*, the fauna of the organic soil scavenges nutrients from the water, reducing the amount of P and N entering the streams.&nbsp; In addition, pathogens don't have a chance when they enter a rich soil ecology. <br /><br />* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reduced in the chemical sense as opposed to oxidized.&nbsp; Reduced carbon is an energy source which plays the same role that sunshine does above ground. </span></i><br /><br />#&nbsp; Nutrients held in the soil in a form which is accessible to the next crop rather than exporting them to the nearest stream via the ground water. Streams flow clear again and if adopted widely, dead zones at the mouth of rivers from eutrophication would be a thing of the past. As a result, aquatic life in the streams recovers.&nbsp; Salmon and trout prosper.<br /><br />#&nbsp; Weeds much less of a problem despite&nbsp; the use of no-till agriculture and reduced or eliminated use of herbicides.<br /><br />#&nbsp; It is believed here in New Zealand that on well drained soils, when a cow urinates, it goes right through the soil into the water table and hence into nearby streams. Organic material is a sponge which will soak up liquid, whether water or urine.&nbsp; If the organic material increases, not only at the surface but also at deeper and deeper levels of the soil, so much the better.&nbsp; The following methods increase organic material throughout the soil, shallow and deep.&nbsp; Once the liquid is held in the soil, the fauna in the soil scavenges the nutrients from it.<br /><br />So what are the methods David has observed which are creating this revolution.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Methods</b></span><br /><br />You may have noticed that I have called this a new way of farming.&nbsp; As I mentioned it is not new methods but the adaptation of methods which were used before the advent of chemical inputs but&nbsp; with a modern twist in light of modern knowledge. These farmers still use chemical fertilizer where necessary.&nbsp; This so called <i>'conservation agriculture</i>' is not a religion but a pragmatic approach to farming.<br /><br /><b>Crop rotation</b><br />Sound familiar??&nbsp; .&nbsp; No surprises here except he has observed farmers who are using a better way of crop rotation.&nbsp; If you only plant wheat, this is the worst case scenario.&nbsp; If you rotate wheat and, a legume in alternate years, this is better.&nbsp; If you adopt a three way rotation of, say wheat, corn, soy beans, better still but the best system is to rotate as many different crops as is practical and in random time patterns.&nbsp; This type of rotation confounds the pests.&nbsp; For instance use wheat barley and oats as your grain crops interspersed with soya, corn and peas.<br /><br />Note&nbsp; <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Corn is a C4 plant and hence produces a lot of organic material which can be cycled into the soil for the soil organisms.</i></span><br /><br />Many pests are crop specific.&nbsp; Planting the same crop in the ground year after year allows them to build up in the soil.&nbsp; Even alternating crops in a two crop system will cause the pests to adapt to this simple system.&nbsp; You develop a nematode or stem weevil, for instance, that can hold out for a year until the favored crop is returned to the field. A more random schedule of rotation and longer times between the same crop is very hard on crop pests.<b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>Cover crops</b><br />As soon as the summer cash crop is harvested, a cover crop is sown.&nbsp; The stover from the cash crop is left in the field, preferably rolled into the ground. In locations where there are harsh winters, the cover crop will be killed by the frost.&nbsp; In warmer climes, it is rolled into the soil before it sets seeds*.&nbsp; The frost killed cover crop is rolled into the ground in the spring in the same pass in which the cash crop is planted (direct drilled) into this bed of mulch. The best candidate for a cover crop is a mix of 8 or more different species including:<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp; * <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The most effective roller he has seen has projecting steel flat bar in a chevron or diamond pattern.&nbsp; It chops up and pushes the cover crop into the ground.&nbsp; It all can be done with one pass of the tractor as the cover crop is rolled into the ground and the next cash crop sowed right into the mulch layer created. The cash crop comes up and shades the soil and any weeds that remain. As the years go by, weeds become less and less of a problem.&nbsp; As much organic matter from both cash and cover crops is left in the field on the surface of the soil.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>&nbsp;</b></i></span> <br />Plants in the cover crop include:<br /><br /># a deep rooter to scavenge nutrients from down deep and to provide a root system that as it decomposes, leaves passage ways for water and air to reach deeper levels.&nbsp; This decomposing organic material will also hold water better than pure mineral soil, making it available to future crops.&nbsp; If cows are grazed on the fields, there may be a problem with their large urine output.&nbsp; If it goes down into the soil and into the ground water it can flow to the nearest stream.&nbsp; With lots of organic matter, both shallow and deep, the liquid is soaked up giving the soil organisms time to convert this source of Nitrogen* into biomass.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>We had a major kerfuffle here in New Zealand about indoor dairy farms.&nbsp; As usual the greenies went off half cocked and dismissed them out of hand.&nbsp; I don't say that indoor farms are always good for animals.&nbsp; Some can be really horrific.&nbsp; The devil is in the detail.&nbsp; One advantage of wholly or partial indoor farms is that you have almost complete control of the waste products that can then be applied to the soil when and in what quantities are most effective and hence least polluting.&nbsp; When applied this way there is little or no pollution since the pasture takes up the nutrients.&nbsp; In this connection see <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/composting-barns.html">Composting barns</a>.</i></span><br /><br /># a shallow rooter to provide a root network holding the surface soil together and a source of organic carbon and nutrients as it slowly decomposes.<br /><br /># a nitrogen fixer to add nitrogen to the soil<br /><br /># a nitrogen user (as&nbsp; all plants are).&nbsp; They scavenge the left over nitrogen to be released gradually next season as they decompose.<br /><br /># a tuber (radish for instance) which as it decomposes leaves large tunnels l for water to percolate down into the soil.&nbsp; The decomposing tubers feed the soil life and adds structure to the soil.&nbsp; Many tubers have very deep roots as well.<br /><br />A common function of <i>most</i> cover crops (not brassicas apparently)&nbsp; is that they <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2009.01926.x/pdf">exude high energy materials</a> from their roots into the soil.&nbsp; These feed the <a href="https://extension.illinois.edu/soil/SoilBiology/fungi.htm">saprophytes</a>.&nbsp; Saprophytes not only give structure to the soil but&nbsp; are able to mobilize nutrients that are not available to plant roots and convert them into a form that the plants can use (notably P). They also bring nutrients from outside the root zone of the plant.<br /><br />The exudates also feed the microbiome which are in turn consumed by earth worms.&nbsp; The worms themselves are a link in mineralizing* nutrients into a form that can be used by plants.&nbsp; In addition, they make burrows which&nbsp; increases water infiltration and allow oxygen** to reach the roots of the plants.<br /><br />*&nbsp; <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Green plants don't use organic matter.&nbsp; It must be broken down into a soluble, mineralized form that dissolves in the soil water.&nbsp; Plant scientists call this process mineralization.</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>** With a few notable exceptions, plants do not pass oxygen from their leaves down into their roots.&nbsp; Most need air around their roots to survive.&nbsp; Worms also provide this service.&nbsp; Incidentally, if you dig in soil that has been regularly plowed for years, you will be hard pressed to find any earth worms.&nbsp; After a few years of the type of farming, mentioned in Montomery's book, worms will be back in force.</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Different climates and soil types will need different mixes of cover crop species.&nbsp; This is a rich area for research in working out the best mix of species for specific areas.</span><i> </i></span><br /><br /><b>No Till</b><br />David observes that the plow back into antiquity has probably been a major cause of the destruction of soils.&nbsp; This is very visible in areas where the Greeks and the Romans held sway.&nbsp; Much of this land is bare rock.&nbsp; More recently it destroyed the soils of America from the eastern seaboard to the great plains.&nbsp; We mustn't be too hard on the plow, though.&nbsp; It may be part of the reason that we haven't already headed into a new glacial period due to the huge amount of carbon that was released from the soil into the air*.&nbsp; Now we have found another way of keeping atmospheric carbon up and can afford to adopt methods that return the carbon to the soil.&nbsp; We are now in danger of going too far the other way and putting far too much carbon into the air for our own good. Sequestering some of this into the soil would be a good thing.<br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>See the fantastic book by William F. Ruddiman,<a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/the-anthropocene.html"> <u>Plows, Plagues and Petroleum</u></a> </i></span><br /><br />No plowing is done.&nbsp; Seeds are planted by direct drilling.&nbsp; At most a very shallow groove is made in the soil to plant the seeds and if chemical fertilizer is used, it is placed in small doses near the seeds, not broad-casted over the whole field.&nbsp; Farmers who are adopting these methods are finding that much less or sometimes, no chemical nutrients are needed.<br /><br />Phosphorous, for instance, in their fields is mobilized from the locked up P in the soil by<a href="https://extension.illinois.edu/soil/SoilBiology/fungi.htm"> saprophytes</a> and Nitrogen is scavenged by the cover crops and held in a slow release form (their bodies) for the next cash crop. It is also supplied by the nitrogen fixer in the cover crop.<br /><br />&nbsp;This doesn't mean that no chemical fertilizers are ever used but they are used as needed.&nbsp; If, for instance, your soil was found to be deficient in, say, cobalt, clearly you would apply a&nbsp; cobalt fertilizer to provide for your plants and/or animals.&nbsp; This is not organic farming.&nbsp; It is not so called 'conventional' farming.&nbsp; It is conservation farming.&nbsp; It is not a religion but a&nbsp; science in which you do what works.<br /><br />Clearly, if you are continually removing crops from your land, you will need, at some point, an input of the removed elements.&nbsp; There is nothing wrong with using chemical fertilizers but you don't want your&nbsp; nutrients to be continually locked up by the soil in a form that the plants can not get at.&nbsp; This is expensive.&nbsp; You also don't want your nutrients to seep down below the root zone and be washed into the nearby stream.&nbsp;&nbsp; Nitrogen can be provided from the air by a nitrogen fixer.&nbsp; Your input of chemical fertilizer is&nbsp; reduced and is applied only as it is needed and this shows in your bottom line.<br /><br />Often, in soils where super phosphate has been used over the years, the soil has a huge reserve of Phosphate but it is all locked up. <br /><br />The above are the three main methods, namely no till, cover crops and random crop rotation.&nbsp; In addition there are two more where appropriate. <br /><br /><b>Grazing</b><br />Again not a new system but an old system with a new twist. It is used by some of these farmers. Both crop stubble and cover crops can be grazed and turned into manure and urine which is very good for the soil.&nbsp; If grazing is used, no roller is needed.&nbsp; Some of the vegetation is trampled into the surface of the soil which acts as mulch and provides food to feed the soil organisms. The rest is deposited as droppings and urine.&nbsp; The system that seems most successful is to graze very hard, very infrequently.&nbsp; Cows, for instance are put on a paddock at a density that finishes all the fodder in in one day and then this area is not grazed again for a year.&nbsp; This system may have been inspired by a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change">TED talk</a> by Allan Savory on his work in Africa.&nbsp; This TED talk is a revelation in itself.<br /><br />No farm, however, can afford to break the farm into 365 small paddocks with fences.&nbsp; Instead mobile electric fences work very well to allow grazers access to a limited area and exclude them from both the as-yet-to-be-grazed area and the already-grazed area.&nbsp; One uses a front and a back electric fence. Many farmers in New Zealand already use this method.&nbsp; There may be places where you would let the grazers in more than once per year but the same principle still holds.&nbsp; Very heavy grazing very infrequently.<br /><br /><b>Terra Preta&nbsp;</b><br />In warm areas with soil above about 25 degrees C, humus which holds nutrients and gives structure to the soil<b>, </b>breaks down and goes into the atmosphere. Unless nutrients are taken up rapidly by, say, an overlying jungle the nutrients are rapidly lost to the system.&nbsp; When a tropical jungle is cleared, at most a couple of crops can be grown before the soil is exhausted and the farmer than resorts to chemicals which&nbsp; finish the damage. <br /><br />It has been observed, though, that there are exceptionally good soils in some tropical areas, often along major rivers.&nbsp; These are areas where the locals have incorporated char into the soil from partially burnt bones and plant material.&nbsp; Char has a three functions.&nbsp; It has no nutritive value to the plants what so ever but it does provide niches&nbsp; where the microbiome can live*.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The organisms in the micro-fauna of a soil usually live in colonies attached to a substrate.&nbsp; They are not free living like, for instance, phytoplankton in the oceans.&nbsp; Charcoal provides ideal surfaces and hidy-holes for such organisms and lasts for centuries in the soil.</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>If you raise chickens you may be familiar with something similar.&nbsp; If you have a lot of chickens in a yard, before long they will have eaten every bit of green that they find at all palatable.&nbsp; So you set up a bunch of cages and plant their favorite green inside.&nbsp; They can only get to the outside leaves so as the plant grows, the chickens crop off the outside but the plant itself is protected and continues to provide greens for the chickens.&nbsp; Charcoal is very porous and in the soil serves a similar function.</i></span><br /><br />Charcoal, though, has another function.&nbsp; It can adsorb nutrients on its surface when they are available and release them when in low concentrations in the soil.&nbsp; Char with respect to nutrients is a little like the hemoglobin in our blood with respect to Oxygen.&nbsp; In both cases the substance in question is taken up easily when available and released when not.&nbsp; In cooler climes, humus serves this purpose.<br /><br />Char is probably not a practical option in commercial farming until&nbsp; and unless we start producing it in large quantities at a feasible price.&nbsp; One good thing, though about char is that it lasts for a very very long time in the soil.&nbsp; In a home garden, it is very practical.&nbsp; All you need <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/04/making-charcoal.html">to produce char</a> is a 45gal drum.<br /><br /><br /><b>Note</b>:<b>1</b>&nbsp; I have just read an article on <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/advice/96781200/keith-woodford-composting-barns-raise-hopes-for-dairys-future">composting barns</a> by Keith Woodford. This technology would fit in exceedingly well with what Prof Montgomery has reported on.&nbsp; Composting barns capture all the nutrients, including nitrogen, contained in the poop and piss of the animals,&nbsp; when they are in the barn. This includes whatever the cows produce at night and when sheltering from inclement weather. When spread on the land it reduces the amount of bought fertilizer needed, and is applied when, and at a rate that most benefits the pasture and hence causes the least pollution (like zero). Compost also provides reduced (in a chemical sense) carbon which provides energy for the soil organisms.<br /><br /><b>Note:2</b>&nbsp; Finally,<b>*</b> (Oct 2017) one of our farms has installed a biogas generator to utilize the effluent the cows drop in the milking shed. &nbsp; The biogas is used to run a motor connected to a generator.&nbsp; More than enough power is produced to run the milking shed.&nbsp; Instead of wasting the heat from the cooling of the motor, it is used to heat the water needed in the milking shed<b>**</b>.&nbsp; A biogas generator only removes C and H from the effluent so, as with composting barns, the effluent from the biogass generator contains all the nutrients in the original poop, piss and spilt milk and can be spread on the pasture when, and at the appropriate rate that benefits the grass and causes no pollution.<br /><br /><b>*</b>&nbsp;<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> <a href="https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/methane-digester-methane-fuel-zmaz73sozraw">John Fry of Rodesia </a>sorted out biogas generation from animal waste back in the 1950's</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>&nbsp;<b><span style="font-size: small;">**</span>&nbsp; </b>When you utilize the heat from a motor/generator running on biogas,, as well as producing more electricity than you use in the shed,&nbsp; efficiencies of around 75% are achieved.</i></span><br /><br /><b>Note 3</b>&nbsp; If you were to incorporate sawdust into your soil, and then plant your vegies, you would find that your plants would hardly grow at all.&nbsp; What is happening here.&nbsp; The cellulose in wood is simply a chain of sugar molecules which are linked in such a way to make them unavailable to multi-cellular animals.&nbsp; On the other hand there are many bacteria which produce cellulaze, the enzyme that can break down cellulose and hence, can access this supply of energy and carbon.&nbsp; With an input of sawdust, soil organisms will flourish but the nutrients will be locked up in the biomass (bodies) of the soil organisms.&nbsp; As soil organisms eat each other, they incorporate around 10% of the biomass into their own bodies and excrete the rest.&nbsp; As long as there is reduced cellulose around, the primary producers (in the soil, this is the microfauna that produces cellulaze) will utilize the waste and build it up into their bodies. &nbsp; As the source of cellulose runs out, the various soil organisms continue to eat each other and release nutrients. At this point your vegies would do just fine.&nbsp; Soil organaisms&nbsp; are giving back the nutrients they captured and there isn't enough reduced carbon in the soil now for the mineralized nutrients to be recaptured by the primary producers.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Addendum</b></span><br /><br /><b>Carbon credits</b><br /><br />If the government is playing fair with farmers, the farmer should be able to receive a nice carbon credit for switching to this type of farming.&nbsp; What is first needed is a survey of your farm to determine what is the carbon content of your soil before you change your methods.&nbsp; You can do this yourself at home if you have a reasonably sensitive balance.&nbsp; Of course you need an official analysis if you want to pressure the government to play fair. &nbsp; If I remember my chemistry, the procedure is something like this.<br /><br /><b> </b><br />You take a sample of soil, preferably with a corer or a post hole digger that goes down to mineral soil.&nbsp; You note the depth to which you took the sample and the area of the surface of the core.&nbsp; <b>A</b> = <span style="font-size: large;">πr</span><sup>2</sup> &nbsp; (pi r squared)<br /><br />Thoroughly mix the soil and take an appropriate size sample. <br /><br />Treat the soil with an acid such as HCl or H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub> (battery acid).&nbsp; This converts carbonates to Chlorides or Sulphates.&nbsp; Otherwise, when you heat the soil later, the carbonates convert to oxides and it looks as if you have more organic matter than is actually in the soil. When you treat the soil with acid it will likely bubble.&nbsp; This is the lime giving off it's carbon dioxide.<br /><br />You dry your sub sample to constant weight at just over 100 degrees C.&nbsp; ie, you dry it, weigh it, and dry it again.&nbsp; If the weight remains the same, you go to the next step.&nbsp; If not, dry again until two subsequent weights are the same.<br /><br />Put your sample in a porcelain type container that has been dried and fired to constant weight and heat it in the oven to about 500 degrees C.&nbsp; Start in a closed container but finish with the container open.&nbsp; You can get appropriate containers from any chemical supply shop.<br /><br />Burn to constant weight.&nbsp; The difference between the start and the finish is the amount of dry organic matter in your soil. Very close to 50% of this is carbon You can then calculate the amount of carbon in the upper level of soil down to the depth you cored.&nbsp; You can also work out the percentage in your soil and the carbon content per hectare.&nbsp; If you want, you can convert this to the Carbon dioxide equivalent by multiplying the carbon by 44/12 or the weight difference (total dry organic matter) by 22/12.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the amount of Carbon dioxide you have sequestered from the air.<br /><b> </b></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-31823403636689452842017-06-17T13:56:00.000-07:002017-10-16T18:58:12.054-07:00Self driving cars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }</style> <br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></div><br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Are we really sure that we want self driving cars.&nbsp; In fact, are we sure we want a car that is even connected to the Internet.&nbsp; There are some pretty strong arguments against both self driving cars and against cars which are connected to the Internet (done so that software updates can automatically be fed into the car computer).</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Just recently there have been some pretty serious hacks.&nbsp; The NHS (National Heath service of the UK) was taken down and here in New Zealand we just had a program on our National Radio about the hacking of electrical power line companies.&nbsp; You would have thought that if there were systems with the very best of protection, it would be these.&nbsp; Perhaps they did have excellent protection but were hacked anyway.<br /><br /><b>Update</b>&nbsp; <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Today (17 Oct 2017) WiFi was hacked.&nbsp; Sheeeesh!! </i></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Imagine the chaos if we had even 10% of our cars connected to the Internet when someone managed to hack the system.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Then there is the secret services of the United States and the so called 5 Eyes.&nbsp; In America it is illegal for these institutions to spy on American citizens but they do it anyway.&nbsp; The&nbsp; hoover up every phone call and e-mail from America and from the rest of the world.&nbsp; Even having a car which is connected to the internet, never mind self driving, gives these institutions yet another window into the private life of all of us.&nbsp; And don't give me the argument that if you are not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear.&nbsp; That argument is so discredited that it doesn't even justify wasting a paragraph explaining the&nbsp; fallacy.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Suppose, for the sake of the argument I want a new software program for the electric car I am driving and my car is not on the internet.&nbsp; No problem.&nbsp; I will go to my home computer, download the upgrade on to a flash drive, take it to my car and plug it in to the flash drive socket provided.&nbsp; Besides, I may want to wait a year to let the early adapters test it out before installing it.&nbsp; The computer world if rife with new computer programs being full of glitches.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Suppose I need navigation.&nbsp; I will simply take my cell phone and put it on the Velcro patch on the dash board.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As for self driving, let me ink out a scenario for you.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You have a daughter - the apple of your eye.&nbsp; You insisted that she learn to drive on a gear shift car since you are a little old fashion and value the old skills.&nbsp; However since she got her license, she has never driven.&nbsp; You gave her a self driving car for her birthday and she loves it. (no wonder) Today she is off to a show in the next town with her boyfriend.&nbsp; ETA 30 minutes.&nbsp; What do you think she is doing for that half hour.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">She is snogging in the back seat with her boyfriend going at highway speed&nbsp; when some sort of computer glitch or hack demands that she take the wheel and manage the brakes and accelerator.&nbsp; It would be chaotic enough if she was sitting in the drivers seat with her hands off the wheel.&nbsp; You fill in the rest.<br /><br />Add to this the ability the secret services will have to send a car into oncoming traffic, over a cliff or into a tree.&nbsp; You think I am exaggerating.&nbsp; Look at the drone programs exposed by Manning.&nbsp; They took shots at a suspected terrorist while he was surrounded by civilians.&nbsp; Secret services are amoral and we don't need to give them more tools to do what they want.&nbsp; What's that you say?&nbsp; They don't operate on their home soil.&nbsp; Give me a break!!!<br /><br />And one further point.&nbsp; With self driving cars and trucks, we put yet another tranche of workers out of work.&nbsp; These are folks that will never be engineers, scientists or lawyers and we need work for them as well.&nbsp; Economists seem to always ignore one basic fact of the economy.&nbsp; The most important factor is the rate that wealth circulates through the economy, not the amount of dollars available.&nbsp; Work through the implications (already demonstrated) of putting yet more people out of work.<br /><br />It simply leads to wealth being more and more&nbsp; concentrated in the hands of the very few uber rich and less circulating in the economy.&nbsp; We are rapidly getting to the point that less and less people will be able to buy the products produced in the factories.&nbsp; One good effect of this is that it cuts into inflation.&nbsp; That may help to explain our present situation (2017).&nbsp; </div><br />I have a strong feeling that an electric car manufacturer who advertises that his cars are not self driving and have no connection to the Internet would have a strong selling point.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-61143369511397044302017-06-08T13:28:00.001-07:002017-06-09T13:29:10.373-07:00The folly of GM crops<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I'm not going to go into various esoteric subjects such as the chance of human created genes jumping to other unrelated species or the chance of wiping out whole species which we consider pests but who's function in their ecology we don't fully understand (possible with CRISPR).&nbsp; This blog looks at the folly of past agricultural advances and the harm they have caused and hence the folly of increasing food production even more.<br /><br />Despite the propaganda of the large companies promoting GM crops, their aim is not to relieve human suffering and provide food for the starving masses. (surprise surprise)&nbsp; It turns out that we already are producing enough food to feed everyone in the world quite adequately.&nbsp; Their aim is to accumulate more of the wealth of the world to themselves and is just one more manifestation of the growing wealth inequality that we see everywhere.<br /><br />&nbsp;As they accumulate more of the world's wealth, the very people they say they are working for become poorer and less able to afford to feed themselves. So what are the down sides of producing more food.<br /><br /><div class="post-body entry-content"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><b>Malthus, <span style="font-style: italic;">the much maligned</span>, stated that populations increases exponentially; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ie</span></span> 1,2,4,8,16 ......, while food production increases arithmetically; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ie</span></span> 1,2,3,4,5 ...... In reality, populations such as humans which lack predators are limited by starvation. A possibly more useful way of stating the principle, with apologies to Parkinson is that <u><span style="font-style: italic;">Population expands to use up any advance in food production*.</span></u></b><br /><b><br /></b><b>*&nbsp; <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Richard Dawkins on P391 of his excellent book <u>The Greatest Show on Earth</u> stated it succinctly and I quote.&nbsp; "If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."&nbsp; One would hope that humans who, at least individually, show a modicum of foresight might learn to show collective foresight. </i></span></b><br /><b><br /></b><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus">Malthus</a> didn't count on various technical advances we would make in food production ever since we left the hunter gatherer life style but was completely correct. Each increase in food production has been used up by population increase. The recent, much vaunted green revolution which started around the 1960's was the latest of such jumps in food production and gave India and some other countries, a few decades without starvation. A recent estimate is that there are now <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text">700m more people</a> on earth due to this latest green revolution.<span id="formatbar_Buttons" style="display: block;"><span class="" id="formatbar_CreateLink" style="display: block;" title="Link"><img alt="Link" border="0" class="gl_link" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" /></span></span></b><br /><b>So with a few delays, Malthus has proven to be completely correct.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>What he didn't know is how our knowledge of contraception would advance. It has often been observed that when populations reach a fairly high level of economic well being, birth rate falls. Everyone is mystified by this and explains that women are delaying having babies as they pursue a career; people are not having any children so that they can enjoy the fruits of their labor and so forth.&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>No argument there but how do you think they are avoiding having children. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Abstinence???</span> I don't think so!! Abstinence went out of fashion more than half a century ago. One of the reasons for not having children (not often stated) is so you can enjoy non-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">abstinence</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">uninterrupted</span>. The simple fact of the matter is that with a certain level of economic development, contraception becomes affordable.&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>The proof of this is a number of countries which have made contraception affordable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran">before they achieved a western level of development</a>. They did it by subsidizing contraception and lo and behold their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_kn45qIvI">birth rate fell</a>. Of course, with birth rate under control, per capita economic development is much more likely. There are less mouths to eat up&nbsp; advances in productivity.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>While we are at it, lets look at the most recent&nbsp; green revolutions that began in the 60's. The Yield of a number of grain crops was greatly increased. Some reports say production was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tripled</span>. This production was achieved by careful selective breeding but the new varieties only fulfilled their potential with irrigation, fertilizer, herbicides and&nbsp; insecticides. Despite being free of starvation for a number of decades. the change was not an unmitigated success. Part of the <a href="http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/11-02/green-revolution-world-hunger-article.htm">dark side</a> has been:</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; a) mining of the water table to provide water for the new, highly productive varieties, lowering it <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">disastrously</span>, notably in China and India,</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; b) accessing deeper layers of water which are <a href="http://www.nypcancerprevention.com/issue/9/pro/feature/arsenic.shtml">contaminated with arsenic</a>, notably in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Bangladesh</span> and parts of India,</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; c) <a href="http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/pesticides-creating-havoc-in-india/">Pesticide pollution</a> of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">aquifers</span>, which along with arsenic contamination has led to a greatly increased incidence of cancer, especially in Bangladesh and parts of India</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; d) <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">salination</span></span> of soils, rendering them unfit for agriculture.</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; e) more land in production pushing nature and her free provision of food, fuel, fiber, medicine waste disposal and clean water further into a corner*.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>*<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(</span><span style="font-size: xx-small; font-style: italic;">you would have thought that land would have been taken out of production due to higher yields.- go figure</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">)</span></b><br /><b><br /></b><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span style="font-size: x-small;"> f)</span></span> production of greatly increased grain yield but with less vitamins and minerals per kg of grain than in traditional varieties resulting in nutrient malnutrition,</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; g) huge loss of a genetic diversity as locals switched to the new varieties, abandoning their traditional varieties.</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; h) the loss of small farms to large land owners as the peasants borrowed to buy fertilizer etc., got into debt and defaulted on their loans.</b><br /><b>&nbsp;&nbsp; i) <span style="font-style: italic;">an <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&amp;ik=51cb963639&amp;view=att&amp;th=136d6bc881098d99&amp;attid=0.1&amp;disp=vah&amp;realattid=12c08479655607ee_0.1&amp;zw">increase in population</a> of about 700,000,000 mouths that are only with us because of this most recent green revolution.</span></b><br /><b><br /></b><b>We really have got to the point of diminishing returns. Every advance in agriculture production makes us poorer and poorer. It makes us poorer by:</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>*decreasing the availability of food, fuel, fiber, clean water and clean air that we obtain <span style="font-style: italic;">gratis</span> from nature as more land is put into agriculture for profit.</b><br /><b>*decreasing the ability of nature to process our wastes safely </b><br /><b>*decreasing the variety of foods available to us as areas which once grew fruit and vegetables are given over to the more profitable growing of grain crops for cash.</b><br /><b>*reducing the space we have to live in as we are crowded by more and more people.</b><br /><b>* facilitating diseases of crowding that we would otherwise not have had and increasing the possibility that a <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.com/2009/02/malthus-pyramid-schemes-starvation.html">pandemic</a> will be much more severe.</b><br /><b>* pushing us closer to a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">disastrous</span> collapse in our <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Gia</span></span> support system as we test the theory of sudden climate change with gay abandon.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>There is talk now of the need for a second (actually more like the 100<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">th</span></span>) green revolution, this one based on splicing new genes into varieties of grain. This will probably work and will further increase production. As has happened since agriculture began, population will increase until the new advances in production are used up. In the mean time all those extra people will further degrade the natural environment that we depend on for our existence.</b><br /><br /><b>If you want to see the other likely consequences, go back and read what resulted from the 60's green revolution. </b><br /><b><br /></b><b><span style="font-size: 85%;">Note: <i>It has been reported that a number of genetically changed plants caused <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html">organ failure</a> when fed to rats.</i></span></b><br /><b><br /></b><b>Extra agricultural production only pushes us closer to the brink. The last thing you want when you are standing at the edge of a cliff is a great leap forward.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>As was mentioned above, since the 60's it has been noted that when a country achieves a certain level of prosperity, birth rate falls. This is a modern phenomenon. It didn't happen anywhere in Europe before the last century. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Britain's</span> birth rate remained high all through the industrial revolution with well off Brits having as many children as their poorer cousins. Think back to your grandfather and great grandfather's family. How many children did each of your ancestors have as far back as you can trace. The difference, as previously mentioned,&nbsp; in the 'modern era' is contraception.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>Contraception has been available at least from Roman times, but it only became truly effective when it was modernized and put into the hands of women. Both the pill and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">effective</span> IUD (as opposed to previous less than adequate models) only became practical from about 1960 onward and they have had a huge effect in countries where they are affordable either because the economic level of the population makes them so or because the government has subsidized them.&nbsp; In both cases, birth rate has fallen precipitously. Ignoring immigration, which is another story, most European countries have decreasing populations. What a success - and they are fighting against it tooth and nail. That is also another story.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>I lived in South Africa for 15 years, much of the time in the homeland of Gazankulu.&nbsp; Despite an educational level of around grade 2 amongst many of the women, they would come into the clinic for their 3month jab to keep them from getting pregnant.&nbsp; There is a vast difference between not having a formal education and being stupid.&nbsp; These women were clever and fully realized the advantages of having less children.&nbsp; Their men were not so smart.&nbsp; They would have beaten the women if they knew what was happening. </b><br /><b><br /></b><b>We must learn to live in our respective countries with a stable and then a reducing population. This , of course will result in a population in which the age distribution curve is heavily skewed toward older people. We have to work out ways to live and live well in such a society. For far too long we have been living in a pyramid scheme in which each generation had to be larger than the previous one.&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>This was necessary so that there were enough young people to fill the more menial jobs before they rose up to higher levels.&nbsp; It was also necessary in order to have enough working people to provide the pensions of the retired. This, quite frankly, is a stupid system.&nbsp; The pension contributions of the working public should go into buying up the means of production.&nbsp; Pensions are then paid&nbsp; from the dividends from these companies and even from selling the shares to presently working people.&nbsp; The elderly become a boon rather than a drain on the economy as they spend their pensions.&nbsp;&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>Our system can't go on.&nbsp; We must stop importing so-called cheap labor to fill the positions of the children we are not having. In the long term, cheap labor is very expensive.</b><br /><br /><b>Note that people are now worried about robots taking over our jobs.&nbsp; Surly these two phenomenon fit together beautifully.&nbsp; We have less jobs available and less young people to fill the positions.&nbsp; The critical factor is taxing fairly the companies who are producing their goods by automation instead of by people.&nbsp; Too many large corporations now get away with paying little if any tax.&nbsp; This tax money then goes to the unemployed, whether young or pensioners.&nbsp; The companies should also face up to reality.&nbsp; If people have no money they can't buy the goods they produce by automation.&nbsp; It is in their interests to have money in the pockets of the people. </b><br /><b><br /></b><b><br /></b><b>Pyramid schemes collapse and the mini collapse we are going through at present (2008ff) is nothing compared to what is to come if we keep increasing agricultural production rather than concentrating on reducing population. If we continue this way, we will soon have an answer to the question of who is correct regarding <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&amp;tid=282&amp;cid=9986"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">sudden climate change</span></a>. If the climate change sceptics are wrong, we may very soon achieve the <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16958300/the-profit-of-climate-change-james-lovelock.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">l</span></a><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><a href="http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/01/29/lovelock-warns-one-last-chance-or-8-billion-die/">ovelock</a></span><a href="http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/01/29/lovelock-warns-one-last-chance-or-8-billion-die/"> number.</a></b><br /><b><br /></b><b><br /></b><b>* <span style="font-size: 85%;">Starvation killed an estimated 50m Chinese over the 19th century, 20m Indians in the latter half, 1m Irish between 1845 and 1852, 1/3 of the population of Ethiopia from 1888 and 1892 and 3m in Bengal in 1943. Imagine the effect of the failure of the wheat and rice crop for just one year due to sudden climate change or even from a mega volcano one spring. <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Inevitable-Climate/139423?cid=megamenu">(link)</a><br /><br />** If you double your population or your GDP, you pretty well double your use of water, wood and minerals, double your production of pollution and garbage and double the area of land you cover in buildings.&nbsp; You continue to eat into unoccupied land, you eliminate all the benefits unoccupied land brings to the human population for free. Below is a table of how long it takes to double all of the above as a function of yearly GDP growth rate. You can calculate it for yourself with a high-school calculator if you put in (for 3% growth rate, for instance) log 2/log1.03.&nbsp; The '2' is a doubling time, 1.03 is the interest (growth rate).<br /><br />Annual growth and number of year to double the economy<br /><br />1%</span> 70 years</b><br /><b>2% 35 years</b><br /><b>3% 23 years</b><br /><b>4% 18 years</b><br /><b>5% 14 years</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>How many countries in the world do you know that can find twice the water, wood, minerals and produce twice the pollution and garbage and still have any quality of life.&nbsp; The only two I&nbsp; can think of off hand are Canada and New Zealand.&nbsp; <a href="http://safeshare.tv/w/vwncRciSFb">We don't want to live like this</a>.</b><br /><b><span id="formatbar_Buttons" style="display: block;"><span class="down" id="formatbar_CreateLink" style="display: block;" title="Link"><img alt="Link" border="0" class="gl_link" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" /></span></span></b><br /><br /><div id="refHTML"></div></div></div></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-75221113565256553792017-05-08T19:28:00.001-07:002017-09-04T13:24:22.971-07:00Greening the desert<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">If you could set up a whole bunch of desalination plants, you could pump the water on to a desert somewhere and over time it would green and you would establish a fresh water aquifer.&nbsp; It wouldn't work.&nbsp; No one is going to go to that expense for some future nice-to-have ecological result.&nbsp; No, you need a way of doing it, that in the mean time generates revenue.&nbsp; Fortunately such a way exists already.<br /><br />Some time ago I wrote a blog on Sea Water Greenhouses.&nbsp; You can see it <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2007/09/i-wish-id-thought-of-that-growing.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for image sea water greenhouse" class="irc_mi" height="288" src="https://images.sciencedaily.com/2015/07/150714083029_1_900x600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 53px;" width="596" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sea water greenhouse can be at any scale.&nbsp; Note the solar panels powering the pumps and fan.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />To recap briefly, you set up a tunnel house with it's long axis parallel to the prevailing wind.&nbsp; Note that sea water greenhouses will only work if the humidity is low.&nbsp; You close the upwind end of the tunnel house with a screen made of some wettable material such as excelsior or some types of cardboard such that the wind can blow through this end of the greenhouse.&nbsp; The downwind end of the Greenhouse has a Solar powered DC fan sucking the air out of the greenhouse and a condenser to condense the moisture out of the air stream.&nbsp; You dribble your sea water down the screen at the upwind end and collect it in a trough.&nbsp; You will find it is amazingly cold.&nbsp; You pipe this water to the condenser at the downwind end in a lagged (insulated) pipe and it will condense out fresh water from the air passing the condenser.&nbsp; You collect and use this fresh water to irrigate your plants.&nbsp; You pipe the sea water back to the upwind area and dribble it down the excelsior screen again. Somewhere in this return system is a bleed off that you can adjust so that the water never gets too salty.&nbsp; This brine is piped back to the sea or into an evaporation pond.<br /><br />There are many ways to run the agricultural side of such a green house but here I am talking about an open system in which the plants grow in soil on to which you drip the fresh water.&nbsp; You don't use a closed hydroponic system. The reason is simple.&nbsp; You want the excess water to flow into the soil and over time create a fresh water, water-table. All by themselves, plants will start to grow around the farm where none grew before.&nbsp; As more and more of these salt water greenhouses are set up, more and more fresh water will flow into the ground.&nbsp; You can plant trees and you are on your way to transforming the desert. <br /><br />The key is in having a farming enterprise that is profitable.<br /><br />Of course, you may have some other source of water.&nbsp; There may be, for instance, a salt water aquifer you can tap far from the sea.&nbsp; No problem and perhaps an extra opportunity.&nbsp; Not all such aquifers are simply condensed sea water.&nbsp; They may have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining">valuable minerals</a> in them.&nbsp; For instance some brines are rich in Lithium, some in Borax.&nbsp; Whatever the composition of your sub surface salt water, you can let the overflow brine go into lined ponds to evaporate and precipitate out whatever salts are in the water. In the mean time the lighter fresh water going into the soil from your tunnel houses will float over top of the salty aquifer just as occurs in coral atoll islands. The salty aquifer will be sucked down over time as you utilize it and be replaced with fresh water.<br /><br />In some locations in Australia trees have been cut down to farm the land.&nbsp; The trees were keeping the salty water table down and without the trees, the area has become a salty swamp.&nbsp; This would be a perfect place to use such greenhouses and over time replace the salt water with fresh water.&nbsp; In the mean time, you could have solar ponds to generate electricity.<br /><br />Incidentally, this will work as a remediation system in areas where salination has ruined the soil.&nbsp; Often there is salty sub surface water which can be used and replaced by the fresh water your tunnel houses produce.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-15923305666749883942017-04-20T12:39:00.002-07:002017-06-15T19:12:21.265-07:00Communism and Capitalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">There ain't nothing wrong with either Communism or Capitalism and people that harp on about them are either ignorant or are trying to misdirect your attention from the real problems with both systems.<br /><br />America uses Communism as their boogy man and communist countries do the same with Capitalism.&nbsp; Strange in the case of America since her favorite ally is Israel. &nbsp; &nbsp; Israel is the only country I know of that has had actual Communism.&nbsp; Their communes are called Kibbutzim (plural of Kibbutz) and were truly communistic organizations.&nbsp; They provide a good case study of real communism.<br /><br />Kibbutsim were not the&nbsp; type of&nbsp; commune we are more familiar with, with a charismatic religious leader such as with the many communes that self destruct.&nbsp; With the religious sort of commune, the charismatic leader takes a leaf out of the book of many countries and uses the fear of 'others' to hold his commune together.&nbsp; Look how America does this with the fear of communism and now her new boogy man, Terrorism.&nbsp; In the communes we are more familiar with, people get more and more paranoid, often collect weapons and build walls around their commune.&nbsp; Besides, the charismatic leader, before long, feels that every attractive female in the group should be his 'hand maiden' and this sows discontent. Some of these communes go so far as to commit suicide to bring on the apocalypses.<br /><br />No, the Israeli Kibutz is run on democratic principles.&nbsp; In the Kibutz are&nbsp; a number of different enterprises.&nbsp; Often they have fish ponds, a dairy, cotton fields, greenhouses for cut flowers and usually a factory producing, say, socks or plastic items.&nbsp; The leaders of these enterprises are chosen from the group according to their ability and typically hold that position for 3 years.&nbsp; Then they rotate to another sector in the kibutz, or go to university,or spend some years in the army or are voted to be the lea-son to the general kibutz movement.&nbsp; One of their members is often chosen to be the head of the Kibutz (also, typically for 3 years).&nbsp; So what keeps them motivated.<br /><br />They all get exactly the same allowance to buy things in the Kibutz store, all wear the same clothes, all live in the same standard of accommodation<br />&nbsp;and so forth.&nbsp; Hard to believe, coming from our western societies where money is the measure of all things but they are motivated by their position in the community.&nbsp; Someone who runs the dairy farm and runs it well is looked up to by all the member of the commune and&nbsp; this, plus the satisfaction of doing a good job that helps his fellow members makes him always strive to do his job well.<br /><br />I must mention here that the classic Kibutz system has broken down in Israel but for reasons that have nothing to do with the above.&nbsp; That might be the subject of a future blog.<br /><br />Two lessons we should take from the Kibbutz.&nbsp; One it is democratic and two it recognizes the rule of law.&nbsp; Everyone has a say at the regular meetings where the policy of the Kibutz is hammered out and no one is above the law. Kibbutzim are fair and equitable and transparent.&nbsp;&nbsp; They also seem to work best in societies of up to about 250 individuals.&nbsp; When they get too big, the effect of everyone knowing everyone else tends to weaken.&nbsp; Incidentally, Kibbutzim are socialistic or if you like communistic inside but capitalistic in their relation with each other, the rest of Israel and the outside world.<br /><br />So what is wrong with what we call communism.&nbsp; We associate Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin with communism.&nbsp; You may not realize it but when Communism began, Americans were flocking to join communist and socialist organizations and unions in America.&nbsp; Workers were being treated even worse then than today and this was their way of joining together to get a fair deal.&nbsp; The bosses hated this and went to extremes to stop these movements*.&nbsp; No way did they want to pay a fair wage for a fair days work.&nbsp; Then in Russia, Stalin co-opted the movement.<br /><br />* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">They used hired goons, then the national guard and in some cases the army. </span></i><br /><br />When the abuses Stalin perpetuated on his own people became known, people left communist organizations almost as fast as they had joined.&nbsp; His abuses had nothing to do with Communism as such.&nbsp; He was a ruthless dictator who stifled any spark of Democracy and the rule of law and abused his own people.&nbsp; To give him credit where a small amount of credit is due, he had to prepare his country to withstand the aggression of Germany and in a new democracy without established mechanisms, he might well,&nbsp; not have succeeded.<br /><br />So what is wrong with Capitalism.&nbsp; Nothing at all.&nbsp; The problem is not with Capitalism as such but with the destruction of democracy by the leaders who want power and the uneven application of the rule of law. Being a Capitalist or a Communist has nothing to do with democracy or the rule of law.&nbsp; You can have democracy and the rule of law in both system or no democracy and disdain of the rule of law in both systems.<br /><br />Look at yourself as a citizen of a so called democracy.&nbsp; What are you not allowed to do.&nbsp; You can't steal, obtain financial benefit by false pretenses.&nbsp; You can't throw your pollution or garbage on your neighbors land or your commons.&nbsp; You can't bear false witness.&nbsp; You can't cause the death of other by omission or commission and so forth.&nbsp; This is all as it should be..... but the law is not applied equally.<br /><br />Large companies and rich individuals get away with all of these and it takes a huge effort to bring them to justice.&nbsp; It happens but it is notable in its rarity when a case succeeds against a big corporation or a rich person who is abusing his position.&nbsp; Corporations and the rich can afford high power lawyers who can find&nbsp; loop holes in the law to get them out of trouble when an ordinary citizen would be sent to jail for the same crime.<br /><br />Look at the recent election in America.&nbsp; America has the finest founding document, (The Constitution), in the world.&nbsp; The core of this document is that the government is by and for the people.&nbsp; Chuck out all the rest and leave only this phrase and it would still be the finest founding document in the world.&nbsp; Look what happened in the DNC (the Democratic National Convention - the body that chooses who their candidate will be in the presidential election).&nbsp; Debbie Wasserman Shultz in cahoots with Hillary did everything they could to make Hillary the candidate and succeeded despite the fact that Bernie was clearly the peoples choice.&nbsp; (remember that part about for and by the people).&nbsp; Then Obama, who is a constitutional lawyer and who swore to uphold the Constitution, came out for Hillary (by and for???).&nbsp; Then Warren followed suit.&nbsp; These people only pay lip service to the Constitution, the top law document of the United States.&nbsp; I doubt if they even understand the concept.<br /><br />They remind me of some of my religious friends.&nbsp; They extol the bible but only follow the parts that fit with their world view or even more cynically, the parts that give them some sort of advantage. Actually, it is lucky, to some extent, that they do pick and choose. &nbsp; Imagine what trouble you would be in if you followed the bible literally and started to stone your neighbor as he cut the lawn on Sunday.&nbsp; On that line, I find it amazing that the religions right is at the forefront of mining, logging fishing, drilling in parks and in short exploiting nature to the n'th degree with no regard for sustainability while the atheistic left wants to preserve our world in some sort of reasonable shape for their descendants.&nbsp; Go figure.<br /><br />Anyway back to the topic.&nbsp; The problem is not with Communism or Capitalism or any other ism you care to site.&nbsp; The problem is whether the rule of law is applied equally and fairly and whether or not you have a democracy which is truly by and for the people.&nbsp; Both can exist in any ism or be absent.&nbsp; In America Democracy and the rule of law are disappearing at a rapid rate if they ever even actually existed. </div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-15709332965088073702017-03-25T12:56:00.001-07:002017-09-08T13:22:40.492-07:00Bottled Water<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">We are in the middle of a bit of a stramash in New Zealand regarding bottled water.&nbsp; Some folks are all a twitter (jealous?) of companies which are bottling this natural resource and selling it overseas.&nbsp; I sort of see where the nay-sayers are coming from.&nbsp; Bottling water <i>is</i> a license to print money.&nbsp; What the complainers want to do is to put a price per liter on the water these companies use but this is the thin edge of the wedge.&nbsp; If you charge these folks, why not other users such as industries and agriculture for their water use.&nbsp; This would be a complete can of worms for an agricultural export country such as New Zealand.<br /><br />Just to put things in perspective, New Zealand is not a desert.&nbsp; We have some dryish places like the East Coast of South Island where I live but even here we have above 500mm per year. The West coast of South Island, is quite literally a temperate rain forest.<br /><br />&nbsp;<img alt="" height="385" src="https://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/niwa.co.nz/files/styles/sidebar/public/sites/default/files/images/climate_-_nz_rainfall_1971-2000.jpg?itok=Xzf6TisN" width="280" /><br /><br />So let's first look at <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/28/241419373/how-much-water-actually-goes-into-making-a-bottle-of-water">how much water</a>&nbsp; various industries use.&nbsp; For bottled water each bottled liter uses 1.39liters of water, for soda, 2.02, for beer 4, for wine 4.74 and for hard liquor, 34.55 liters.&nbsp; Note that this is only for the processing.&nbsp; It doesn't include, for instance, the water needed to grow grapes or hops or the water to produce the bottles .&nbsp; The table below gives some of the agricultural figures.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="in-article sortable"><caption><h2>Typical values for the volume of water required to produce common foodstuffs</h2>Click heading to sort table. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste#data">Download this data</a><br /> </caption><thead><tr><th class="left bold" id="table-cell-11764--1-0" scope="col"><div>Foodstuff </div></th><th class="left bold" id="table-cell-11764--1-1" scope="col"><div>Quantity </div></th><th class="last left bold" id="table-cell-11764--1-2" scope="col"><div>Water consumption, litres </div></th></tr></thead><tfoot><tr><td colspan="3"><div class="footer"><div class="notes">Source: IME<br /><i>&nbsp;Note that these figures are only for the production of the product, not for the processing.&nbsp; </i><br /><br />Let's look at our primary, number one industry in New Zealand, the production of milk.&nbsp; The over-all world estimate is just over 1000 liters of water to make a liter of milk&nbsp;&nbsp; The whole calculation is fought with whichevers and whatevers.&nbsp; Do you go as far as calculating the water needed to produce the oil that powers the tractor, or the water needed to produce the plastic or glass that the milk is packaged in and so forth. The 1000liter figure is just for the farm that produces the milk. However far you decide to go in the chain, it is a lot of water. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.godairy.co.nz/the-big-picture/facts-and-figures">New Zealand produces</a> about 21.3billion liters of milk per year.&nbsp; Using the above figure, she therefore uses about 21.3 <b>trillion</b> liters of water.&nbsp; That is 21,300,000,000,000 liters of water.&nbsp; If the bottled water industry produced the same amount of bottled water as the milk industry produces milk, she would use 1.39/1000 = 0.00139 as much water or 29.6 billion liters of water.&nbsp; To put this into perspective one of our modest rivers, the Clarence, on the East coast (dry side of South Island) sends 50.5billion liters of water per year to the sea.&nbsp; A little over half of this modest sized river would be enough to allow the sale of a volume of water equal to the volume of milk produced in New Zealand.<br /><br />Note that the dairy industry at present uses the equivalent of 421 Clarences to produce its milk ie, 842 times as much water as would be needed to produce the same volume of bottled water.<br /><br />Incidentally, we actually sent <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&amp;objectid=11819499">9m liters of water overseas</a> last year so the bottled water industries actually used 0.00025 of a Clarence (one Clarence equals 50b liters).&nbsp; Lots of room for expansion before the amount of water taken for bottling becomes a significant drain on our wet little country.<br /><br />&nbsp;Surly this water bottling has to be a more efficient use of our water than producing milk.&nbsp; I'm not suggesting that we stop producing milk but surly in a country like New Zealand, we could locate, say at&nbsp; somewhere on the West Coast, a water bottling plant and bottle vast amounts of the best water in the world without even noticing that some had been removed.&nbsp; West coast rivers are vastly larger than east coast rivers.<br /><br /><b>But as usual we are missing the important question.</b><br /><br />The important question is <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/78652406/The-bottled-water-giants-who-are-taking-our-water">who owns</a> our water bottling industries.&nbsp; It is my understanding that at present, overseas companies bottle our water.&nbsp; Surly in a technologically modern country such as New Zealand were we can totally own and run a massive dairy industry with all the technological challenges associated with such a perishable product, we can manage, run <u><i>and</i> <i>finance</i></u> our own water bottling operation.&nbsp; We also finance, produce and market our own wine.&nbsp; Surly we can market water.&nbsp; How about if our pension funds finance the industry.&nbsp; As I said, water bottling is a license to print money.&nbsp; If our National pension funds owned the industry, in essence, water bottling would be owned by the people of New Zealand and contribute to our pensions which are under some pressure at present.&nbsp; We could completely shelve this current idea to raise the pension age if we really went after the bottled water market.<br /><br />It is obvious that any foreign company worth the exorbitant salaries of it's&nbsp; executives, and which has a license to sell one of our renewable products will do their best to make her profit overseas* and will&nbsp; take the profit they earn in New Zealand overseas as well.&nbsp; We allow this with our foreign banks which were reported last year to be taking one Billion dollars a month overseas.&nbsp; Are we a little simple in the head, or do we lack confidence or are we just plain lazy. Are we going to allow big multi nationals to make money from our water.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> The common dodge is to sell the water (or other resource) at a very low price to a subsidiary overseas.&nbsp; The overseas subsidiary then ups the price and makes most of the profit in that country.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>No, we must own our own water bottling industry and tax it as we would tax any other export business, no more and no less.&nbsp; Absolutely no need to put a price on water.&nbsp; The government could sweeten the deal by giving a percent of the tax from the industry to the local district where the water is extracted.&nbsp; The revenue must stay in New Zealand and the taxes go to the exchequer.&nbsp; With a hugely profitable business such as this, the contribution to the exchequer would be huge.<br /><br />Just a couple of days ago one of our economists on National radio was commenting on how much more valuable a dollar is when it is earned and spent in New Zealand than when it is earned and sent overseas.&nbsp; Hardly rocket science.<br /><br />It might take some time to penetrate overseas markets if we went it alone but we did it with milk and we did it with wine.&nbsp; Surly we can do it with water. Are we just being lazy, inviting foreign companies to do what we should be doing.<br /><br />Always follow the money. Who is benefiting from us having foreign companies bottle our water.&nbsp; Who owns shares in these companies.&nbsp; For that matter, who is benefiting from having foreign companies fish our waters, build our rail stock, buy our raw logs instead of finished wood products and so forth.&nbsp; You fill in the gaps.&nbsp; There are many other examples. <br /><br />Apropos, the head line in today's Press (Sat 25 March, 2017) is <u>Can China save New Briton*</u>.&nbsp; Are we becoming some Micky Mouse third world country that can't look after her own&nbsp; affairs for the benefit of her people.<br /><br />*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A place in New Zealand threatened by sea level rise. </span></i></div></div></td></tr></tfoot><tbody><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-0-0">Chocolate </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-0-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-0-2">17,196 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-1-0">Beef </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-1-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-1-2">15,415 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-2-0">Sheep Meat </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-2-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-2-2">10,412 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-3-0">Pork </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-3-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-3-2">5,988 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-4-0">Butter </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-4-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-4-2">5,553 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-5-0">Chicken meat </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-5-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-5-2">4,325 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-6-0">Cheese </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-6-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-6-2">3,178 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-7-0">Olives </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-7-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-7-2">3,025 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-8-0">Rice </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-8-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-8-2">2,497 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-9-0">Cotton </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-9-1">1 @ 250g </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-9-2">2,495 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-10-0">Pasta (dry) </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-10-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-10-2">1,849 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-11-0">Bread </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-11-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-11-2">1,608 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-12-0">Pizza </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-12-1">1 unit </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-12-2">1,239 </td></tr><tr class="odd"><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-13-0">Apple </td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-13-1">1 kg </td><td class="last left" id="table-cell-11764-13-2">822 </td></tr><tr><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-14-0"><br /></td><td class="left" id="table-cell-11764-14-1"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-81972772211919226672017-03-08T11:38:00.001-08:002017-06-02T14:56:01.326-07:00Interglacials, Phosphine and Diphosphane<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">As usual in my blogs, this theory is a bit of speculation; a hypothesis or if you like brainstorming so read it as such. &nbsp; <br /><br />First let's get the terminology right.&nbsp; We are in the middle of an ice age which started some 2.5million years ago. It is called the pleistocene although some define the Plistocene as having started 1.8m years ago. &nbsp; Within this ice age have been approximately 30 glacials and an equal number of interglacials.&nbsp; At present we are in the Holocene interglacial and the previous one, centered about 125,000 years ago, was the Eemian (given different names by various scientists).&nbsp; The Holocene Interglacial started about 20,000 years ago by definition, at the peak of the recent glacial but melting really got underway about 11,500 years ago.<br /><br />Not to get too precious about this but we have to decide what words we are going to use for which periods. It is confusing to the layman and doesn't aid in informing the general public.&nbsp; Above is the way I learned it but any terminology would be fine with me as long as we all agree on what we mean when we say 'ice age".&nbsp; If the term Ice Age is to be used for the glaciation between the Eemian and the Holocene, then we have to have a new term for the 2.5m year period of warm and cold we have been experiencing. <br /><br />What is problematic, is to explain is why Carbon dioxide rises steeply as the ice melts and oddly enough seems to follow the ice melting rather than leading it.&nbsp; The most accepted theory today has to do with the ocean circulation powered by the production of heavy, cold salty water at both ends of the earth and the relationship between the temperature of the surface of the sea and the amount and speed it can take up Carbon dioxide (or release it) from/to the atmosphere.&nbsp; The basic physics is pretty simple and undeniable.&nbsp; Cold water can hold more Carbon dioxide than warmer water.&nbsp; The chain of cause and effect after this is a tad more tenuous.<br /><br />The following hypothesis in no way negates the ocean current/water-temperature theory.&nbsp; It is just&nbsp; suggesting another source of Carbon dioxide as the ice melts.<br /><br />Regardless of the source, what seems to happen is that as the ice begins to melt, Carbon dioxide rises a little later and&nbsp; the released Carbon dioxide then accelerates the melt etc. etc.<br /><br /><a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/end-of-ice-ages.html">Previously, I&nbsp; hypothesized</a> that over the approximately 100,000 years that ice covered large parts of the continents, a huge amount of methane clathrate would have accumulated under the ice.&nbsp; Methane clathrate forms when methane is in contact with water under a pressure equivalent to about 300m of water or more.&nbsp; The cooler the temperature the less pressure is needed but under sufficient pressure a clathrate can exist even up to 30 degrees C.&nbsp; This higher temperature clathrate is not really relevant to our discussion since the bottom of deep ice sheets tends to be around zero degrees C so clathrates will begin to form when the ice reaches, say 400m or so.&nbsp; The extra depth is necessary since the top 70m or so of the ice tends to be firn (porous snow which is turning into ice due to the weight of snow above it) which is lighter that ice.&nbsp; All above figures are approximate.<br /><br />Incidentally, there is also a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_clathrate">carbon dioxide clathrate</a> so any Carbon dioxide coming out of the ground to meet the bottom of a deep glacier would likely form a clathrate as well.&nbsp; The formula for Carbon dioxide clathrate is thought to be CO<sub>2</sub>.6H<sub>2</sub>O*<br /><br />* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">In a Carbon dioxide saturated clathrate, there is a sixth of a mole (gram molecular weight) of Carbon dioxide for every mole of water.&nbsp; So a mole of water (18g) could contain 7.3g of carbon dioxide(a sixth of 44g)&nbsp; In a liter of saturated CO2 clathrate you would have 407g of CO2.&nbsp; This is 9.26 moles of Carbon dioxide.&nbsp; Since one mole of any gas occupies 22.4liters at STP, then one liter of methane clathrate at STP would release 207 liters of the gas if it disintegrated.&nbsp; Pretty amazing, no? The formula for saturated methane hydrate is </span></i><span class="st"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">CH 4 · 5.7H 2O.&nbsp; Work out what volume of methane could be released from one kg of water ice saturated methane&nbsp; to form methane hydrate.</span></i></span><br /><br />&nbsp; <br />The source of the methane includes organic material buried by the ice, which when deprived of oxygen decays by methanogenesis.&nbsp; Other sources are deposits of coal, oil, tar sands, natural gas and shales.&nbsp; Since an accumulation of ice tends to push down the land&nbsp; approximately a third of the height of the ice (ie a km of ice will depress the land a third of a km) a sort of natural fracking may occur.&nbsp; In other words,&nbsp; cracks could well be opened up which would release gas that had been capped by layers of impermeable rock. In addition there are methane seeps all around the world which would create clathrates under ice without any need to invoke the cracking of the earth under the weight of ice.<br /><br />I'm not sure what the composition of "swamp gas" is but when you operate a biogas generator, the <a href="http://www.biogas-renewable-energy.info/biogas_composition.html">composition of the gas</a> is approximately 70% methane and 30% Carbon dioxide.&nbsp; If this is similar for organic material breaking down under an ice sheet then both CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> clathrate would accumulate. <br /><br />I also hypothesized that since the ice at the height of a glacial would be pushing&nbsp; into areas too warm for ice to form, it would only need a nudge from the Milankovitch cycle to start the melt.&nbsp; If sufficient melting occurred then enough&nbsp; methane would be released to produce a negative feed back and accelerate the process.&nbsp; Hence the transition into an interglacial.<br /><br />Note that the greater the ice sheet, the more unstable which may explain why every Milankovitch nudge didn't cause an interglacial in the latter half of the present ice age. Apparently it was necessary for the ice sheet to be really big and hence really unstable.<br /><br />When I suggested the methane theory to a number of scientists, they assured me that such an outpouring of the very <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/the-real-strength-of-methane.html">powerful greenhouse gas</a>, methane, would appear in the ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica.&nbsp; Further they said that there is no evidence that methane converts to Carbon dioxide within ice bubbles.&nbsp; When the analysis was done and no methane signature was found.&nbsp; I argued that methane has a half life of about 7 years and so would disappear rather rapidly and the <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/formed.html">Firn layer</a> is some 70m deep and so gas exchange would occur through this layer, softening the edges of the signature.&nbsp; I was assured that there still would be a methane signature and none was found.<br /><br />So,,, what if the methane ignited as it was released from under the ice.&nbsp; One could suggest lightening as an igniter but this seems rather unlikely and once the methane is sufficiently diluted in the air, it is no longer ignitable.&nbsp; Methane will ignite when it is between 5 and 15 percent of the air.&nbsp; Of course pure methane will ignite at the edges where it is mixing with the air, just like happens in your gas hob. &nbsp; If it came out in sufficient quantities and with sufficient velocity, it would produce its own mini lightening and ignite but this too seems to be somewhat far fetched to explain the ignition of all this methane from all sources.<br /><br />No, the methane, if it is ignited and thus is responsible for the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, it has to be ignited as it enters the air before it has been diluted too much to burn and it needs a source of ignition that it carries with it. <br /><br />Then I remembered phosphine (PH<sub>3</sub>)&nbsp; It is also produced by the rotting of organic material in swamps along with diphosphane (P<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>).&nbsp; Methane is the main component of swamp gas.&nbsp; These two phosphorous compounds ignite on contact with the air and would ignite the methane. &nbsp; This phenomenon is observed around the world in swampy areas. A common name for this in English is Will o' the Wisps.</div><br /><b>From Wikipedia</b> (<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sorry, links don't work.&nbsp; They work in the original article</b>)</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>In modern science, it is generally accepted that most ignis fatuus are caused by the <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidation" title="Oxidation">oxidation</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphine" title="Phosphine">phosphine</a> (PH<sub>3</sub>), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphosphane" title="Diphosphane">diphosphane</a> (P<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>), and methane (CH<sub>4</sub>). These compounds, produced by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound" title="Organic compound">organic</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition" title="Decomposition">decay</a>, can cause <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon" title="Photon">photon</a> emissions. Since phosphine and diphosphane mixtures spontaneously ignite on contact with the oxygen in air, only small quantities of it would be needed to ignite the much more abundant methane to create ephemeral fires.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-roels2001_32-0"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp#cite_note-roels2001-32">[32]</a></sup> Furthermore, phosphine produces <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus_pentoxide" title="Phosphorus pentoxide">phosphorus pentoxide</a> as a by-product, which forms <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid" title="Phosphoric acid">phosphoric acid</a> upon contact with water vapor. This might explain the "viscous moisture" described by Blesson.</i></span><br /><br />All this is great but leaves a huge number of questions unanswered.&nbsp; Since two ice sheets are in the process of disintegrating at present (West Antarctic and Greenland) we may see evidence for or against this hypothesis as the ice melts.<br /><br />Questions:<br />1/ Are there indeed large amounts of methane (and Carbon dioxide) stored under the ice sheets as&nbsp; clathrates.<br /><br />2/ Do these deposits contain phosphine and diphosphane.<br /><br />3/&nbsp; Has anyone observed a&nbsp; Methane coming from under an ice sheet, say, when a river appears from under the ice and which therefore exposes part of the bottom of the ice sheet to atmospheric pressure. (low pressure allows clathrates to break down)<br /><br />4/&nbsp; Has anyone ever observed the spontaneous ignition&nbsp; of methane (other than above swamps where it regularly occurs).&nbsp; Note that in daylight, a methane flame is almost invisible.<br /><br />5/&nbsp; If there is phosphine and diphosphane in such methane deposits, what happens to it as methane plumes rise through ocean water.&nbsp; Is it scrubbed out or does it rise with the methane.&nbsp; The composition of the gas from the ocean bottom as it leaves the water and enters the air could be quite different from an outpouring of gas on land. For instance, if a mixture of methane and Carbon dioxide bubbles were rising through a column of water, likely the Carbon dioxide would be scrubbed out.&nbsp; It would, though, show up as a decreased alkalinity of the surrounding sea water.&nbsp; I don't know what the relationship is between water and phosphine and diphospane.<br /><br />To increase the credibility of the above hypothesis for the source of at least some of the carbon dioxide that is seen in the atmosphere as the ice sheets melt, we would have to see a similar phenomenon with the presently disintegrating ice sheets. <br /><br /></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-31109997349897451872017-02-22T01:00:00.002-08:002017-05-09T11:48:38.028-07:00Freezing the Arctic with Wind Turbines<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have just read the most abysmally stupid idea for combating climate change.&nbsp; Some 'professor' proposes to put some 10 million wind pumps all over the arctic ocean at a cost of trillions of dollars to pump sea water onto the ice where it will freeze and thicken the ice.<br /><br />Leaving aside the difficulty of building and maintaining anything which is floating amongst the ship crushing ice flows in the Arctic, how about putting all these wind turbines on land and off shore all over the world to generate electricity and replace fossil fuel use.&nbsp; Use some of these trillions for energy storage systems as well and promote electric cars.&nbsp; Attack the source of the problem, not the symptoms.<br /><br />Besides, when surface sea water freezes naturally, it produces fresh water ice.&nbsp; The salt is rejected, forms brine which sinks to the bottom of the ocean.&nbsp; As heat conducts through the ice into the atmosphere, more fresh water ice is frozen to the bottom of the existing ice and more brine is produced.&nbsp; This fresh water ice is strong and melts...well at the freezing point of ice.<br /><br />If you pump sea water on to the ice where it freezes, it will be full of salt.&nbsp; That slushy weak ice will melt out rapidly when spring comes and will likely melt out the underlying fresh water ice just like when you put salt on an icy sidewalk.<br /><br />Add to that, even if this hair brained idea did work, what would the effect be when we are up to 500 or 600 ppm CO2 and the funds ran out at the next economic crisis (none of the fundamentals were changed by the Obama presidency) and the first item cut from the budget is maintaining all these wind pumps in one of the harshest environments in the world.<br /><br />This whole idea reminds me of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff type policy that we use with our refugees.&nbsp; Instead of eliminating the source of the refugees, we spend huge amounts of money trying to care for them.&nbsp; They don't want to be in our strange (to them) land.&nbsp; They want to be in their homes amongst their friends.<br /><br />To stop the creation of refugees, the next time someone decides to start a completely unjustified war in someone else's country,&nbsp; the whole world should put full sanctions on them.&nbsp; Yes America and the UK, I am talking about you.<br /><br />Even worse, when you refuse to come to the party and reduce your carbon pollution, once again sanctions should be imposed until you wake up.&nbsp; Here I am only addressing the US.&nbsp; The UK is making a pretty reasonable fist of reducing their carbon emissions.<br /><br />This ridiculous idea of trying to artificially create more ice is&nbsp; philosophically, practically and scientifically fought.&nbsp; Get real and address the cause.&nbsp; Use these trillions to get us free from fossil fuels.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-25228144969005090672017-02-11T11:24:00.000-08:002017-05-08T19:09:44.404-07:00Australian Air Conditioning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This blog was triggered by an item on our NZ National Radio when they crossed to Kerry-Anne Walsh in Australia.&nbsp; She reported that there is a heat wave in Aus with temperatures reaching and even exceeding 45C.&nbsp; At the same time, Kerry-Ann reported that the Ausi electrical generation network can't cope with the load so they are instituting rolling load shedding* just when the people most need their air conditioning.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Power grids are set up to shut down sectors when demand exceeds the power they can generate. Not pleasant if you are in the sacrificed sector when the temperatures are lethally hot and your air conditioner no longer works. </i></span><br /><br />This is not just a matter of convenience or comfort.&nbsp; When the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature">wet-bulb* temperature </a>rises above about 33C, a human can't cool off any more and such temperatures become fatal.<br /><br />* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A wet bulb temperature is a combination of temperature and humidity.&nbsp; At 100% humidity and a temperature of 33C, you can no longer cool the body by sweating or radiation.&nbsp; As the air gets drier and drier, you can tolerate higher temperatures because your sweating mechanism becomes more effective.&nbsp; It has been suggested that with Climate Change, areas of the earth will become uninhabitable unless the people have air conditioning. &nbsp; </span></i><br /><br />Kerry-Anne also mentioned that part of the problem is the emphasis in Aus on Wind power as part of the grid generation and when you depend on wind, it doesn't always blow when you need it most.&nbsp; ie - during one of these heat waves.&nbsp; This got me to thinking.&nbsp; Let me make a side step for a moment.<br /><br />When I lived in Gazankulu in South Africa, I set up a fish farm&nbsp; for one of the local sub tribes.&nbsp; It was fed water from a near by lake and the water was pumped by a MonoPump powered by an array of solar panels.&nbsp; A mono pump is a positive displacement pump* so if it turns a little it pumps a little water and if it turns a lot it pumps a lot.&nbsp; (unlike centrifugal pumps that need full speed to pump their water).&nbsp; It had a DC motor. DC motors can be set up to turn in proportion to the amount of power they receive.&nbsp; Note that AC motors must have their full power or they tend to burn out.<br /><br />*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A piston pump is one example of a positive displacement pump.&nbsp; It's output is proportional to the number of rotations it makes.&nbsp; Centrifugal pumps which are the ones most used and which are powered by Alternating Current (AC) must operate at their rated speed to be effective. The mono pump mentioned above has a staneless steel shaped rod rotating within a rubber sheath and the way it is configured results in a positive displacement pump.</span></i><br /><br />When the sun came up in the morning and touched the panels the pump started to operate slowly and as the sun rose, it pumped more and more.&nbsp; Why do I mention this.<br /><br /><b>The two things you have to take from this story is that with suitable electronics, the rpm of a DC motor is in proportion to the amount of power you feed it and a positive displacement pump will pump in proportion to it's rate of rotation.&nbsp;</b><br /><br />Back to the air conditioning.<br /><br />An air conditioner, in essence,&nbsp; is nothing more than a gas pump and two fans.&nbsp; Let me divert again and explain a touch of physics.&nbsp; I hope no physicist are reading this.&nbsp; They would have a conniption fit at my explanation.&nbsp; I apologize right at the beginning but if you are not into physics, the 'story' makes more sense this way.<br /><br />When you compress a gas as you squeeze it, it heats up and if you have somewhere cooler than the gas, the heat will flow to this cooler location.&nbsp; Think of it as if you are squeezing the heat out of the gas.&nbsp; If you compress it more and more, at some point it will condense into a liquid and a lot of heat will be squeezed out as the molecules come much closer together in the liquid.&nbsp; When you let off the pressure and let the liquid evaporate, and in addition, let the resulting gas expand, it cools and can absorb heat from its environment.&nbsp; This is an air conditioner.<br /><br />You compress the gas even to the point that it liquefies and run it through a radiator outside the house with a fan blowing outside air across the radiator. &nbsp; You then pipe the liquid into the house&nbsp; and let it evaporate and expand in a second radiator with a fan blowing across <i>it.</i> The expanded gas cools and, of course cools the air which is being blown across it.&nbsp; The pump takes the gas and once more compresses it.&nbsp; Now let's pull this together.<br /><br />All you need is a few solar panels on your roof pointing North*.&nbsp; They are connected directly to an air conditioner with&nbsp; 3 DC motors (to power the gas compressor and the two fans).<br /><br />*&nbsp;<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> I live in the southern hemisphere </i></span><br /><br />For the most part, it is hot when the sun shines.&nbsp; Yes I know there are some hot cloudy days but at a 95%+ level, Sunny = Hot.&nbsp; So now you have an air conditioner that works harder and harder the higher the sun is both on a daily and a seasonal basis.&nbsp; You can even slant the panels a little toward the West to take care of the continuing heating of the air even after the sun has reached it's zenith.&nbsp; <br /><br />Best of all you are not putting extra strain on the grid when it is under its greatest strain. and you are independent of 'The Man".&nbsp; You take care of your own air conditioning with zero operating costs and ever reducing capital costs as solar panels become less and less expensive.<br /><br />Have a well insulated house and you can forget about your air conditioning.&nbsp; It works automatically and works hardest when you most need it.<br /><br />Incidentally, most air conditioners can work in reverse.&nbsp; That is to say, heating the house.&nbsp; If you are in the central plains of America where there are lots of sunny days in the winter but it is very very cold, you can switch your air conditioner to heating mode.&nbsp; It won't work very well on cloudy days but you will have to cut less wood to get you through the winter.&nbsp; If you are all ecological, you could say with some justification, that you leave the trees alone to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air instead of burning them.<br /><br />Apropos, no one would ever suggest that only one source of renewable power is the answer to weaning ourselves off fossil fuel*.&nbsp; Each has it's advantages and together they are much more effective than any single source.&nbsp; And single technologies are more effective&nbsp; if they are geographically distributed.&nbsp; That is the advantage of our existing national grids.&nbsp; They can bring power from areas where the wind blows or the sun shines to where the wind&nbsp; is not blowing or the sun is not shining at the moment.<br /><br />*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">April 1 - I just read an article in the Guardian that Aus is putting in a massive solar electric facility with batteries.&nbsp; Great move. </span></i><br /><br />If there is one country in the world with abundant renewable energy it is Australia.&nbsp; I don't know why they burn coal at all.&nbsp; Must be political.&nbsp; It certainly isn't technical.<br /><br /><b>Post scriptum&nbsp;</b><br /><br />Two days later. <br /><br />I just got to thinking.&nbsp; There is no need to reinvent the system.&nbsp; It already exists in most of it's parts.&nbsp; For a first approximation simply go to your local car demolition yard and buy the air conditioning system of a wrecked car. presumably they&nbsp;&nbsp; run on 12 volts DC.&nbsp; You might also need&nbsp; a12V battery into which to feed the electricity from your solar panels&nbsp; to regulate the voltage.&nbsp; You might also need some sort of cut out switch to ensure that you don't take the battery too low.&nbsp; I believe that such a switch already exists in camping vehicles which have a second 'house' battery.&nbsp; You then need a refrigeration technician to extend the pipes between the inside part of the system and the outside part and to charge up the system with refrigeration gas.&nbsp; You may also want to purchase the fans that blow across the respective radiators from the wrecking yard.&nbsp; Radiator fans should be just the trick.&nbsp; For a very modest investment you could test out such a system and see how it's capacity compares with the needs of your house. From then on it is just a matter of some tweaking and development.&nbsp; The basic system already exixts.<b> </b></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-60242757486804938862017-02-04T11:30:00.000-08:002017-02-06T11:12:11.052-08:00Vetting check list for rich immigrants<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The rich from America and other Northern Hemisphere countries see the chaos coming and want a bolt-hole to run to if the situation in their own country gets too hot.&nbsp; New Zealand is a prime target for the rich and 'famous'.&nbsp; If they have been instrumental in the creation of the coming chaos, they should be left in their own country to enjoy the fruits of their labor. &nbsp; The source of their fear is three fold.&nbsp; <br /><br /><b>Economic </b><br />There is the threat of another crash but one that won't have an Obama to save the day.&nbsp; Obama succeeded in avoiding the worst consequences (at least for the rich - the common people suffered) but he didn't manage to get reforms passed the way FDR did.&nbsp; Before FDR the American economy crashed on about a 14 year cycle.&nbsp; Post FDR there was half a century of economic stability.&nbsp; Clinton and others deregulated and we had 2008.&nbsp; In the natural course of events one would expect the next crash about 2022 (14 years after 2008).&nbsp; I doubt it will take that long.<br /><br /><b>Climate Change</b> <br />There is the threat of climate change and some indications that it will hit the Northern Hemisphere very hard.&nbsp; The chaos, climate change will cause will make the nastiness caused by America's never ending wars look like a minor inconvenience.<br /><br /><b>Insurrection</b><br />Third there is the threat of insurrection in America.&nbsp; Trump has appealed to a population that wants change and who wouldn't.&nbsp; They could have had Bernie but a hugely corrupt DNC shafted that possibility.&nbsp; Now we have Trump and if there was ever a divisive president he is it.&nbsp; I don't think most American politicians realize why&nbsp; the second amendment was put in the Constitution (right to bear arms).&nbsp; It was put in place so that no government could ever abuse their population as was the norm in the 1700s.&nbsp; The American population is heavily armed and many many of them have been sent to war after war.&nbsp; They are battle trained.<br /><br /><br />Therefore, below, I present a vetting list for the "rich and famous" when they want to buy&nbsp; a bolt hole in New Zealand to escape to.&nbsp; Some of the following would automatically eliminate a candidate, some would trigger what our friend Trump calls extreme vetting.&nbsp; Unfortunately some of our politician and civil servants are all-a-flutter at the prospect of catering to the rich.&nbsp; I'm not saying by any means that they are receiving favors from these people.&nbsp; Just that they are a little starry eyed.&nbsp; Think - An innocent 16year old girl who has just got a date with a rock star.&nbsp; All a twitter.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Vetting List&nbsp;</span></b><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone who doesn't pass the normal criteria of language, time spent in New Zealand, police checks and so forth that any other immigrant must pass.&nbsp; You have to ask yourself, why would someone who is well established in their own country want citizenship in a country they don't live in. Why should we allow them to purchase a bolt hole in New Zealand to avoid the results of their actions.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Any member of a Northern Hemisphere political establishment. Especially the GOP.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone in the Trump administration.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Any American super delegate.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Any CEO on an obscene salary.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone who works or worked for Goldman Sachs, Merril Lynch or any of the other companies who were implicated in the crash of 2008</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone who works or worked for a bank. Especially if they hold or held high office.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone who was in the Bush administration.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone in the Military.&nbsp; The higher up, the more extreme the vetting.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Any lobbyists.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Anyone in the pharmaceutical industry.&nbsp; The higher up, the more extreme the vetting. &nbsp;</span></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></b><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Climate change deniers</span></span></b><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">If the scientists are even half right, the present gradual climate change we are experiencing&nbsp; will suddenly (within a few years) flip to a new state.&nbsp; Some call this a light switch phenomenon.&nbsp; You push against the spring until the light switch clicks and you have a new state (light to dark).&nbsp; You have to push&nbsp; hard in the other direction until the previous state is restored.&nbsp; No need to detail the chaos that will occur if the scientists are correct.&nbsp; Any climate change denier would attract extreme vetting, anyone who's actions had hindered the adoption of measures to mitigate climate change would be summarily rejected.</span></span><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Economic reform deniers</span></span></b><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Following the crash of 2008 there was a crying need to re-introduce the measures that were so successful in FDR's administration.&nbsp; His reforms stopped the boom and crash cycle and led to half a century of economic stability.&nbsp; Anyone who fought against the re-institution of these measures would be automatically rejected. Anyone who was for deregulation, likewise.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">You may like to add to this list and I will be happy to entertain any suggestions.&nbsp; The principle is clear.&nbsp; We don't want people here who have contributed to the coming CF.&nbsp; Why should they get a get-out-of-jail card and leave behind the situation they have created.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course, if you reverse this list, you see the type of people who could be admitted to lifeboat New Zealand</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-8268703142090217752017-02-01T23:49:00.001-08:002017-03-08T22:55:21.885-08:00Letter to Barak Obama<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }</style> <br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Dear Professor Obama</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I am very glad you are not going to observe common custom of American presidents and desist from commenting on the present presidency. You are a voice of calm, reason and right thinking which is much needed today.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Your legacy is being dismantled step by step and this is a tragedy. I was going to say that you have no one to blame but yourself but that is manifestly untrue. Also to blame are Hillary and Debbie in cahoots with each other and Elizabeth Warren.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Not only are you a constitutional lawyer but you swore to uphold the constitution of the United States. The core of that constitution is the part saying that the government is ‘by and for’ the people. The rest is window dressing. Just keep that part and you would still have the best founding document that the world has ever known. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Therefore, if you were going to endorse someone as the Dem candidate it should have been the peoples choice. It was abundantly clear who that was. To support anyone else was unconstitutional.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">What <i>really</i>gets me is the stupidity of the decision. Why on earth would you, the DNC and Warren support a candidate with at best, a 50:50 chance of beating Trump instead of the candidate that would have left Trump as a minor foot note in American history. Professor Warren is particularly disappointing.&nbsp; She was by a long shot my all time hero and her fall from grace, pandering to her own ambitions to be on the team is shocking.&nbsp; And it is not as if she didn't know who Hillary is.<br />&nbsp;<cite class="_Rm">&nbsp;</cite><br /><cite class="_Rm">https://www.<b>youtube</b>.com/watch?v=12mJ-U76nfg</cite></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You certainly have your work cut out for you trying to influence the course of the next 4 or 8 years but in my opinion, your first job is to reform the badly misnamed Democratic party. There is nothing democratic about it.<br /><br />&nbsp;<cite class="_Rm">https://www.<b>youtube</b>.com/watch?v=iWvH84YvEF8</cite><br /><br />Go back to the choosing of Truman as FDR's running mate and work your way forward in time to this recent CF resulting in Trump being elected and you will see what I mean.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_vice_presidential_nomination_of_1944</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">If Bernie had been elected, he would have taken your legacy, preserved and enhanced it.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">What I am going to say now will sound bombastic but work your way through the implications of the situation we find ourselves in and you may come to the same conclusion.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Your support of Hillary combined with the support of the DNC and&nbsp; Warren may just possibly have doomed our civilization. It certainly will have led to a huge amount of chaos and suffering in the world. Arguably we are just on the brink of tipping points that will send our climate to a new state. We have&nbsp; adapted our civilization to the climate state we have had since the end of the most recent glacial period and any new state will result in much suffering. The more closely you have adapted to a situation, the greater the disruption under a new situation.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />Looking at the strange weather now (2016-17) it could be that even Bernie would have been too late but at least he would have taken the necessary measures and we might just possibly have a chance.&nbsp; Under Trump, especially if he is in for 8 years, we are deep in the brown stuff.<br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">With respect to the economy,&nbsp; under your administration, FDR-type reforms to the economy were not put in place. The next crash is inevitable. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Note that the economy boomed and crashed pre FDR on about a 14 year cycle.&nbsp; After FDR put in much needed reforms, we had half a century of economic stability. Clinton and others deregulated and we had 2008.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal<br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You managed to pull us out of that one without the complete disaster that could have occurred.&nbsp; However you failed to re-instate much needed reforms and the next crash is inevitable.&nbsp; </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So we are facing both economic chaos and Environmental chaos. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I hope that in the book you are working on, you will tell us ‘what happened’. In fact that might be a good title for the book. <u><i><b> What Happened</b></i></u>.&nbsp; It could be an instruction manual for the next president, (after Trump)&nbsp; telling him how difficult it is to get things done, and the pressures he is under to betray his beliefs. It could give future presidents a heads up on how to work the system. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">A big advantage that Bernie would have had is that he has been a mayor, a representative and a senator. He had the experience. You, like Kennedy, didn’t have the depth of experience to know how to work the system. Johnson, the much maligned, got more of Kennedy’s measures through than Kennedy ever did. He knew how it all works</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">On that note, look what Trump is doing. He is doing what he promised and however you (and I) disdain what he is doing, he is proving himself to be an effective president and a man of his word. That is what the American people want and he is very likely to win a second term.&nbsp; Looking at other things he has promised I can only say God Help Us.&nbsp; The people he has surrounded himself with have an agenda which is past abuses of the American people on steroids<br /><br />I believe that if you had moved on things such as Guantanamo during your first two years with a majority, you would not have lost at the mid terms. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">It is not certain that Bernie could have pulled us out of our rush to destruction.&nbsp; We may have actually gone too far already and the coming results are already in the pipeline.&nbsp; But at least, he would have taken the much needed measures and given us a chance.&nbsp; After 8 years of Trump, if he does what he has said he will do: and so far he has shown us that he is a man of his word: then it will almost certainly be too late.</div></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-91022525078852488202017-01-13T11:47:00.000-08:002017-02-18T21:43:29.128-08:00Open letter to Senator McCain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }</style> <br />Dear Senator McCain <br />I read your statement that “<i><u>there is no national security interest more vital to America than the ability to hold free and fair elections without foreign interference</u></i>”. <br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m not trying to “get at you” or at the United States but looking at America from outside, one gets the impression that this battle has long since being lost. Let me give you some examples. It is often easier to be more objective when looking&nbsp; at examples that don't hit close to home so I will use examples from the Democratic Party and from some time ago.&nbsp; I'm sure you can come up with more examples from the GOP&nbsp; than I can.<br /><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Take the abysmal way that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_vice_presidential_nomination_of_1944">Truman was chose</a>n instead of Wallace as FDR’s running mate in FDR’s last term. I’m sure you are familiar with the story so I won’t insult your knowledge by recounting it. Arguably, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction">MAD</a> might have been avoided if Wallace had become president. Wallace was clearly the people’s choice in America and was hugely admired all over the world He was an experienced politician with a proven track record but wouldn’t cow tow to the powers behind the spot lights.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Come forward in time to the recent Dem primary and the abysmal, undemocratic, unconstitutional activity under <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/debbie-wasserman-schultz-resigns-dnc-chair-emails-sanders">Debbie</a> in cahoots with Hillary. Clearly Bernie was the people’s choice. If he had being running against Trump, the result is not hard to predict. I would suggest that he might well have brought in a Dem majority in both the House and the Senate on his coat tails. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Add to this the <a href="https://www.google.co.nz/search?rls=aso&amp;client=gmail&amp;q=America+denial+of+registration&amp;authuser=0&amp;gws_rd=cr&amp;ei=JTZ5WOXpLMWU8wXgj63ABA">denial of registration</a> in many states, the hassling of people trying to vote and the antiquated voting machines that are quite frankly a joke in a first world country. For a recounting of the abuses in one state, put in a google search box <i>Youtube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2togSItA77E">Arazona Hearings</a> Democratic Primary</i>. It’s a shocker. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />If any more was needed, look at your <a href="http://www.cfr.org/elections/us-presidential-nominating-process/p37522">delegate system</a>. Even though a majority of the American people vote for a given candidate, your system can put the other candidate into office.What a joke.&nbsp; What democracy??<br /><br />Then you have&nbsp; the reduction of polling stations such that it is a real treck for many of the voters to get to a polling station.&nbsp; Older people and couples with young children either don't come to vote or get fed up by waiting in line for hours.&nbsp; No prises for guessing which areas have lost their polling stations. <br /><br />&nbsp; Oh, I forgot.&nbsp; Your totally undemocratic <u><i>super</i></u> delegate system, specifically designed to frustrate the will of the people if it doesn't agree with the wishes of the party bosses.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Just two more comments. First it is a bit rich for America to complain about another country interfering in America’s elections. America has a <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/timeline-usa.html">long history</a> of deposing democratically elected leaders and replacing them with dictators.&nbsp; America then supplies the dictator and his army with arms and money so that they can suppress their own people. Start with Mosedeq in Iran and work your way through Africa (Congo for instance)&nbsp; and then central and South America. Include Italy. Look up the <i><u>mtkass blog</u></i> “<i><u>Thoughts on the Roof</u></i>” and type in the search box, “<i><u><a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/timeline-usa.html">Timeline America</a>”</u></i> to see a catalog of specific cases.</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Secondly, while it is important who hacked the e-mails, the really important question is what they revealed. They revealed a very corrupt DNC, which is part of the so called “free and fair” election system of the United States of America. The corrupt, bought and paid for American press is continuing its misdirection of the American people by focusing their attention on who the hackers were instead of what they revealed about the American election system.<br /><br />Whoever hacked the Dem e-mails did the American people a favor. </div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Senator, there is nothing democratic about the American system.. You have by far the best constitution of any country in the world but you simply trample it into the mud.</div></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-69676936249046030692016-12-24T10:18:00.002-08:002017-04-26T03:32:30.737-07:00Chinese air pollution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I don't get it.&nbsp; In-so-far as Chinese air pollution is caused by coal fired power stations, smelters and&nbsp; other factory that spew out particulates and oxides of sulfur into the atmosphere, they could clean up the problem in a historical instant (say 2 years).&nbsp; America did it and the technology is old hat.&nbsp; In America the situation was dire.&nbsp; Once the decision was made, it took them very little time&nbsp; to stop all this nastiness going into the air.&nbsp; The <a href="http://www.explainthatstuff.com/electrostaticsmokeprecipitators.html">technology was patented in1907.</a><br /><br />I can't help wondering what the motivation is of the Chinese government.&nbsp; Is it ignorance.&nbsp; Is it a lack of concern for their citizens.&nbsp; Do they want their citizens to die young so they don't have to look after them in their old age.&nbsp; What on earth is the problem.&nbsp; They seem to be happy that a lot of their people are smoking so perhaps the last possibility is the correct one.&nbsp; Anyway, technically, how would they do it.<br /><br />For the particulates they install electrostatic precipitators.&nbsp; Let me digress here and try to explain how they work.<br /><br />Have you ever run a comb through dry hair and then used the comb to pick up little pieces of paper from the table.&nbsp; What is happening here?&nbsp; When you rub almost any two different materials together, some electrons are rubbed off one on to the other.&nbsp; If the rubbed materials are insulators, the electrons or lack of electrons stay on the surface of the two objects giving one a positive charge and one a negative charge.&nbsp; Opposite charges attract and even a neutral object will be attracted to a charged one as some of the opposite charge on the neutral object is pulled toward the charged object.<br /><br />Or have you ever shuffled your feet across a carpet and then walked over to a friend and brought a finger close to his ear.&nbsp; A little spark jumps and so does your friend. You haven't sent much current to his ear but you were at a surprisingly high voltage which caused the spark to jump<br /><br />Or have you ever got out of a car and as you went to close the door, you got a shock.&nbsp; Once again a charged object sending a spark to an uncharged one.<br /><br />In each case a charge has built up on the object and when you bring the charged object near to an uncharged object, electrons jump from the negative one to the positive one and neutralize the charge.&nbsp; At a microscopic level, if you were a little charge particle, you would be pulled toward any nearby object which was neutral or had the opposite charge.<br /><br />A lot of this is now done by electronic wizardry but I will describe it old school which is easier to understand.&nbsp; You may have noticed that in older cars there is a coil.&nbsp; Ask your granddad about them.&nbsp; This is a transformer that has a few coils of wire coming from the battery and a lot of coils around it going to the spark plugs.&nbsp; When a pulse of electricity is sent by the distributor from the battery through the primary (the few coils) it makes a magnetic field which cuts across the wires of the secondary.&nbsp; This induces a voltage in the secondary.&nbsp; How high the voltage is depends on the number of coils.&nbsp; If there are ten times as many coils in the secondary as in the primary, the 12 volts of the primary (from the battery) will be stepped up 10 times to 120 volts. In a car the ratio of primary coils to secondary is much larger in order to get enough voltage to jump the gap in the spark plug.&nbsp; Actually the strongest spark is created when you stop the current in the primary and the magnetic field it has created collapses.<br /><br />In an electrostatic precipitator you have something similar except the voltage is stepped up to thousands of volts and you pass AC (alternating current) through the primary.&nbsp; So far so good but useless.&nbsp; You have also induced an alternating current in the secondary going positive and negative.&nbsp; You need high voltage direct current.&nbsp; No problem.&nbsp; You rectify this alternating current with a <a href="http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/blog/wheatstone-bridge.html">wheatstone bridge</a>.&nbsp; Note that in the diagrams in the link they talk about resistors.&nbsp; Replace then with diodes that only allow current to flow in one direction and you will understand rectification.&nbsp; I'll leave you to puzzle this one out. It is rather neat. <br /><br />You now have very high voltage Direct current.&nbsp; You conduct this current to a bunch of spikes, plates or bars in the flu of the polluting chimney and electrons stream off&nbsp; and attach themselves to the particles.&nbsp; Once charged, they will be attracted to any neutral or positively charged material.&nbsp; You then have only to pass this flu gas past, for instance, a wet, grounded surface and the particulates will glue themselves on to the water to be washed away.&nbsp; Some precipitators are designed to collect the dry particles and shake them off.&nbsp; Whichever system is used, problem solved.&nbsp; Particulates removed.<br /><br />The fine details are somewhat more complicated (aren't they always) but this technology can be bought off the shelf and with her command economy, I'm sure China can reverse engineer it and build a factory to turn these out in the thousands.<br /><br />As for sulfur, have a look at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555226/">this link</a>.&nbsp; Oxides of sulfur can also be removed and the technology is old.&nbsp; One reason for doing this is&nbsp; to recover the sulfur which is a valuable industrial feed material.&nbsp; On the ecological side, oxides of sulfur in the atmosphere attract water and make aerosols of sulphuric acid which are both&nbsp; toxic and corrosive.&nbsp; With the recovered sulfur, the cost of a sulfur scrubber is negative (you make a profit on the process).<br /><br />Incidentally, in a smelter, (factory where metal is recovered from an ore) an electrostatic precipitator also often recovers valuable materials so you often also make a profit on doing the right thing.<br /><br />&nbsp;What is wrong with the Chinese bosses.<br /><br />There is a little wrinkle in this story, though.&nbsp; Many scientists believe that the particulates in the atmosphere are shading the earth and keeping it cooler than it would otherwise be.&nbsp; A fairly common estimate is about 2 degrees.&nbsp; I don't know what proportion of aerosols (air born particulates) are due to Chinese factory pollution but for the sake of the argument, let's say a quarter.&nbsp; If the Chinese did clean up their pollution, and if the estimates are correct, we could expect a sudden jump of half a degree (centigrade) in our atmospheric temperature.<br /><br />We should see the results of this experiment fairly soon.&nbsp; The Chinese population is getting fed up with being slowly poisoned by their leaders who are sitting on their hands.<br /><br /></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-89925828914823514162016-12-17T10:46:00.002-08:002016-12-26T09:34:58.326-08:00Duterte<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Rodrigo Duterte is the president of the Philippines.&nbsp; He was trained as a lawyer and was a prosecutor in the town of Davao before becoming mayor of that city.&nbsp; He is much in the news because he cleaned up drug trafficking in Davao by the&nbsp; rather brutal expedient of shooting drug dealers without benefit of any judicial procedure.&nbsp; At present he is doing the same for all of the Philippines.&nbsp; Just recently (December 2016) he announced that he killed drug dealers in Davao with his own hand.&nbsp; This has shocked the world and politicians all over the world are decrying his actions and his hands-on involvement.<br /><br />It is interesting to compare and contrast the actions of Duterte in killing drug dealers and those of Presidents Obama and Bush in ordering drone strikes against people they define as terrorists. Incidentally, Obama has ordered many more hits that Bush did. &nbsp; First the similarities.<br /><br /><b>Similarities</b><br />In both cases, these are extra-judicial killings.&nbsp; No trial was carried out, no time was provided to examine the facts and determine if the person was guilty of the crime in question (as defined by the executioner) and no judge and/or jury was involved.&nbsp; No defense was mounted. &nbsp; No reference was made to international standards of justice.<br /><br />In both cases, the killing was carried out in the name of protecting the population from a threat.&nbsp; In the case of the Philippines, against the clear and present horror of drugs.&nbsp; In the case of America against the threat of future terrorism.<br /><br /><b>Now the differences.</b><br /><i>Duterte actually carried out at least some of these killings himself.&nbsp; By admitting he is carrying out this policy and&nbsp; admitting he has done some of the killing himself.&nbsp; He has put himself in personal danger by personally confronting drug dealers.&nbsp; </i><br />The American presidents have set others to do the killing who in turn pass the job on to their subordinates who then pass the job on to their underlings.&nbsp; Even the drone operators are in no danger.&nbsp; They operate the drones from the comfort of their bases somewhere in the USA.<br /><br /><i>Duterte, familiar with his local scene, is likely to be hitting the drug dealers he is targeting.&nbsp; Of course, once you start extra-judicial killings; basically vigilantism; there will be killings of non drug dealers to settle old scores, for pecuniary motivations (protection rackets) and so forth.&nbsp; Extra-judicial killings are reprehensible on many levels.&nbsp;</i><br />Judging from recent failures of American intelligence, it is likely that the drone attacks are often targeting people with no connection with what America defines as terrorism.&nbsp; In addition, recent revelations show that America is very casual about hitting innocent by standers.&nbsp; Bradley Manning is in a military prison, Edward Snowdon is in self imposed exile in Russia and Julian Asange is holed up in an Ecuadorian embassy because of their revelations of these facts.<br /><br /><i>Duterte, as far as can be determined, has had no part in the drug trade he is hitting.&nbsp; He is not and has never been a drug trafficker.</i><br />America has created the freedom fighter/terrorists she is hitting.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The most recent war in Iraq was based on lie after lie.&nbsp; Afghanistan create another bunch of so called terrs.&nbsp; Following the Iraq war, America refuse to let anyone who was a Baathist take part in the administration of their own country.&nbsp; Since you had to be a Baathist to get a job as dog catcher, this involved pretty well anyone of ability and experience.&nbsp; What did this cadre of experienced administrators and military men do.&nbsp; They formed Isis.&nbsp; So now, America can expend lots of ammunition, make lots of profits for her arms industries, keep her military occupied, justify asking for more of the money from America tax payers and so forth as she kills her own creation.&nbsp; In the mean time she is into her next war in Yemen, this time by proxy.&nbsp; She supplies arms and intelligence to the Saudis who are actually carrying out the war.&nbsp; More terrs being created to keep America ticking over into the future.&nbsp; The plight of the people of Yemen is heart wrenching.<br /><br />Extra-judicial killing are reprehensible on many levels.&nbsp; Much modern thought says any killings, even ones sanctioned by the judicial system are reprehensible.&nbsp; Here we are comparing the bad with the even worse.&nbsp; You judge which is the greater crime. </div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-3169881678855317582016-11-19T09:50:00.004-08:002017-05-13T13:23:51.392-07:00The car I want to drive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Most major car manufacturers are getting serious about electric cars and most of them are designing cars with all the bells and whistles. I hate to think what they will cost. I believe there is a massive market for a simple, basic, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Volkswagen</span> / <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">model T</span> ford / 2<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">cv</span></span>/Mini - type electric. It wouldn't be for everyone but I believe the market would be huge.<br /><br />Not only would it be huge in third world countries but also in first world countries. So many of us are fed up with having such a big foot print on the world, fed up with being dependent on someone else to fix our gadgets and fed up with having to tie up a huge proportion of our wealth in a vehicle simply to get from A to B. For other people for whom their very concept of self worth is intimately entwined with driving a fancy car - carry on. Enjoy. The rest of us have a different self image.<br /><br />Many of us are also a tad suspicious about having every gadget we use being connected to the World Wide Web.&nbsp; Who wants to be spied on by his toaster (I'm kidding!!!). I suspect we <i>are</i> being spied on by our television sets. (I&nbsp; am not kidding).&nbsp; If I want an upgrade to my car, I will pull out, say, a flash drive that goes into a socket in the dash board, take it to my computer and request the upgrade.&nbsp; Note that many upgrades to <i>ordinary</i> computers smell like idle fiddling by some egg head and often create problems.&nbsp;<br /><br />Perhaps I am completely content with the way my car already operates or perhaps I want to wait until some other poor suckers have tested the upgrade before I jump in.&nbsp; Besides just imagine some bored hacker in his mom's basement hacking some part of the system and bringing a major city to a standstill with gridlock.&nbsp; Just imagine some foreign power doing the same to your&nbsp; whole country.&nbsp; Worse than a nuclear war and leaves the infrastructure intact as they take over.<br /><br />Of course this also gives Big Brother the ability&nbsp; not only to follow your every move but to decide to drive your car into a tree or over a cliff at high speed.&nbsp; You think I am being paranoid.&nbsp; You have, I assume, being following the revelations of Snowdon and Manning. <br /><br />I agree most enthusiastically with practically everything Elon Musk is doing and advocating but genius is no guarantee of being right.&nbsp; Remember a previous genius, Alvin Edison.&nbsp; He advocated DC (Direct Current) for electrical grids.&nbsp; Luckily we went with Tesla and used AC.&nbsp; It is so much more versatile. &nbsp; Yes, there is a place for DC such as when you transmit power in a cable under water but for the most part, AC is the way to go.<br /><br />So what would this car be like. It would be both very simple and very sophisticated. Simple in that it would have very few frills, a low selling price and it would be easy for a home mechanic of modest ability to maintain and repair. It would be sophisticated in that it would have the very best engineering and best materials providing reliability, longevity, safety, easy driving, fast charging, recyclability, easy repair and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">maximum</span> range.<br /><br />It would be upgradable as new technology became available.&nbsp; For instance if the new graphene batteries prove to be better than Lithium batteries, when the old batteries finally gave out one could change the batteries to the new sort.&nbsp; The old batteries would find a new life in private houses to store excess energy generated by your solar panels to avoid sending the power to the grid at knock down prices.&nbsp; The critical factor is that the new batteries would fit the space where the old batteries lived.<br /><br />If the engineers insist on producing a hybrid, it would be mostly electrical with a small emergency generator. (a turbine??) &nbsp; However, consideration should be given to replacing even the emergency generator with more batteries on a weight to weight or volume to volume basis.&nbsp; So what sort of a car would it be.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Styling</span><br />The styling would be distinctive.&nbsp; It would be as recognizable as the&nbsp; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Volks</span></span> Wagon Combi, Betle, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Deux</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Cheveaux</span></span>, Model T Ford or Mini. &nbsp; None of these cars were objects of beauty but they were distinctive. &nbsp; Clearly it would have to be as aerodynamic as possible and this tends to converge the styling of all cars but there must be no doubt what vehicle you are looking at when you see one of these cars. Easy identification is a big help in making a car iconic. No changes would be made to the styling from year to year. None what so ever. The Beetle didn't need it, neither does our Peoples-Electric. &nbsp; Not needing to retool for design changes contributes to a lower price.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Driving damage</span><br />Bumpers and mud guards should be bolt off and bolt on so that repairing a ding is a simple job of trading in your old part for repair or recycling and bolting on the new part. These easily damaged parts should be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">compatible</span> for decades. A bumper from the first production model must fit the latest model and vice-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">versa</span></span>. Some thought should be given to a hydraulic or pneumatic bumper which could sustain bumps of, say 5 or 10km/h without damage*.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Nov 2011.&nbsp; I just read of a jell bumper that a new electric car is using.&nbsp; Good on you guys. </i></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Vehicle Manual</span><br />The vehicle manual would be straight out of America in their best tradition; the sort of manual that comes out of Time-Life or Readers Digest. They have the most incredible how-to-do manuals where everything is beautifully, clearly laid out and the illustrations are works of art. Once the car had been designed, the wives, secretaries and accountants of the company would be let loose on the car, with the manual, to see if they could change the electric motor, CV joints and anything else that might need to be replaced. If they could not do this, either the manual or the car or both would be redesigned. (No fair changing the secretary or accountant)&nbsp; A copy of this manual would be standard equipment and would fit in a specially designed compartment in the car.<br /><br /><span id="formatbar_Buttons" style="display: block;"><span class="on down" id="formatbar_Bold" style="display: block;" title="Bold"><img alt="Bold" border="0" class="gl_bold" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tools</span><br />There would be a standard 'A' tool set and an optional 'B' tool set. The 'A' set would allow one to change a tire and tighten up a screw. The B tool kit would allow most procedures necessary to be done on the car. Very rare tools could be rented from the dealer.&nbsp; If at all possible the car would be designed to use only conventional tools and to ensure that&nbsp; a minimum of tools are necessary. The tool kit would fit in a specially built-in compartment in the car.<br /><br /><b>The Body</b><br />Have a think about a carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic body.&nbsp; It may not be practical yet but look up the item on <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame#t-108489">YouTube by Amory Lovins</a> in which he shows his audience a half dome of the material and gives them a sledge hammer to see if they can break it.&nbsp; The car body could go together like pop beads with a smear of epoxy, eliminating all that welding.&nbsp; The&nbsp; material is naturally rigid and sound absorbing and able to survive severe crashes while protecting the driver.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Chassis</span><br />Initially there would be only one medium size chassis but eventually there would be three sizes: small, medium and large. On to each of these chassis would bolt the body of a pick up truck (Ute, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Bakkie</span></span></span></span>, Tender), a family car, a people <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">mover</span> (van, Combi) or a sports car..... Well maybe not a sports car on the largest chassis but certainly on the medium and small chassis.&nbsp; Perhaps with modern materials and technology, we might have mono-cock cars with no chassis.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Parts</span><br />Wrecked or scrapped cars could be taken apart for parts and the parts would fit on any other car no matter what the vintage. Also, in so far as possible, fittings from one size of car would fit on the other sizes. All, for instance, would use the same head light bulb, door handle, radio mounting and so forth.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yearly Model Changes</span><br />&nbsp;None.<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />This ridiculous system of planned </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">obsolescence must be made obsolete</span> .<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Steering gear</span><br />Lets go for simple rack and pinion.&nbsp; Check out all the cars that used this system and adopt the best one.&nbsp; Power steering uses power and in a reasonably light car power steering is completely unnecessary.&nbsp; Besides, Rack and Pinion is cheaper and easy to repair (if it ever needs repairing).&nbsp; Our Peoples Electric will tend to be a light car with all the frills removed and eventually, as the technology allows, thermoplastic carbon fiber bodies. Rack and Pinion steering will be perfectly adequate.<br /><br /><span id="formatbar_Buttons" style="display: block;"><span class="on down" id="formatbar_Bold" style="display: block;" title="Bold"><img alt="Bold" border="0" class="gl_bold" src="https://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Windows</span><br />Nothing wrong with wind up windows but make them of quality material so that they wind up smoothly when you buy the car and just a smoothly in 20 years.&nbsp; Remember, no planned obsolescence.&nbsp; Electric windows use power and are more expensive to build and repair than mechanical windows.&nbsp; <i>&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i>OK you can have your electric windows if you insist but that is a far as I am prepared to compromise my people's electric.</i><br /><br /><b>Car Magazine</b><br />A quarterly car magazine would give interesting hints on how to maintain your car, maps of places to exchange or charge your batteries and quirky stories of how someone had crossed the Sahara with the car fitted with solar panels and how someone else had fitted a chuck wagon stern to his vehicle and gone on roundup.&nbsp; It would be interesting, informative amusing and iconic. It could be delivered to your reading device or in a paper form if you prefer.&nbsp; Some of us Luddites like paper.<b> </b><br /><br /><br /><b>Solar cells</b><br />Solar cells must eventually be fitted on every possible surface.&nbsp; The technology is probably not there yet but is advancing rapidly.&nbsp; Very interesting work is being done on allowing all panels to contribute their full generation capacity despite a lack of co-linearity and despite some panels being partially shaded. When we have power point tracking for individual solar cells, these technologies will greatly increase the effectiveness of the solar cells which clad the car. At one time solar panels were stiff and flat.&nbsp; Now one can buy flexible panels.&nbsp; It should soon be possible to clad any shape and get the full power from each cell.&nbsp; In addition there is work on producing power from windows.<br /><br />&nbsp;Note that the solar panel retrofit on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Prius</span></span> on the roof between the front and rear window is reputed to give about 10 km extra for a day in the sun. A nice little bonus. With advances in the technology and panels on the whole car, one might get, say, 25 extra km per sun-day*. We're not talking here about a completely solar car.&nbsp; Just a nice little bonus for a day in the sun and the possibility of getting home if you forgot to charge and ran out of gas (sorry - electricity)<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 85%;">*<i>Note that since the writing of this article there has been an item in the news (The NZ Press, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">feb</span></i> 2010) that IBM has developed a solar panel using only "easy to find" minerals. If this development becomes commercial, the cost of solar panels should plummet even further. They already are on a toboggan ride.&nbsp; Standard panels coming out of China are already (2012) down to a dollar per nominal watt.</span><br /><i><br /></i> <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mechanical Design</span><br />The designers would endeavor to use the most commonly available parts much like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works">Skunk Works</a> does. The Skunk Works <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">only</span> innovates parts that are necessary for the special functioning of the aircraft in question. The rest is off the shelf. If a certain tire rim with a certain spacing of stud is the most common in other cars of the world, this size should be adopted. If a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">certain</span> head-light bulb socket is most common all over the world, this one would be used and so forth. This would ensure that if you were stuck, you would have a good chance of finding parts that would get you by. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Conversely</span>, scrapped cars of this type would be a rich source of parts, even for other makes. Even better for the company, people with other types of vehicles would always try to buy from the company because of the high quality and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">competitive</span> pricing of their parts.&nbsp; Having your parts fit other cars would ensure a large market.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Warranty</span></span><br />None, Nada, Zilch. This may sound revolutionary..... and at first, not having a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">warranty</span> would be a negative selling point. At the very least, make it an optional extra.&nbsp; As confidence builds up in the reliability of the car, people will relax about the lack of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">warranty</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">In fact, a lack of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">warranty</span> will quickly become a major selling advantage.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Warranties</span> cost the company money and this is built into the price of their vehicles. The savings from the lack of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">warranty</span> must be passed on to the customer. An added effect would be that people would not thrash their car during the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">warranty</span> period. They would look after their cars from the start.<br /><br />Besides, as mentioned above, the cars would be so easy to repair that any joker with a basic set of tools and the manual could repair any part of the car. By their nature, electric cars will be far simpler than petrol cars.&nbsp; Moreover computer boards are simply unplugged and reprogrammed or a new one plugged in.&nbsp; Computer chips are as cheap as,,,,, well chips, and software when spread over many users is also cheap.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dealers</span><br />Dealers would locate in the low rental industrial areas of cities or towns. Only one dealer would be allowed per city or town. In their warehouses they would sell the cars and have a full stock of spares. <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">They would </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">never</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">ever ever</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> ever run out of spares</span>. Their computer system would flag when they had to order parts to keep their inventory up to date. A dealer who couldn't do this would loose his dealership. All dealers and their staff would be sent to the factory to practice doing everything on the car that could be done but they would not be required to do repairs at their dealership. They would be there to provide advice and parts.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Computers</span><br />Undoubtedly, there will be&nbsp; computer chips in the car. How about using one of those computer memory sticks (flash drives) that people use to transfer information from computer to computer. Have it plug in to the dash board. Taking it out and plugging it into your PC would run a diagnostic and you could reprogram the chip for maximum efficiency or maximum performance or for whatever other options were available right from your PC.&nbsp; Hardware is expensive.&nbsp; Software, when spread over many units is cheap.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Battery<br /></span>This is out of the hands of the company but every effort should be made to standardize batteries between different makes and models of cars. For instance, the battery of a Tesla should fit a Volt and vice <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">versa</span></span>. It would be well worth while looking at the Project Better Place option.&nbsp; At the very least, a new company developing an electric car could adopt the battery design of other cars right from the outset and build the car around that design.<br /><br />Apparently the lithium ion battery is now obsolete and the Lithium <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">titanate,</span></span> lithium iron phosphate and lithium polymer batteries are far longer lasting.&nbsp; The polymer battery, is apparently much lighter.<br /><br />Graphene batteries are on the horizon with the discovery that with an addition of water, the layers of grapene do not fuse. &nbsp; Batteries can be upgraded as technology allows but can still have the same outer aspect so that they can be used in older vehicles. The batteries might be based on a standard cell of 2x3x5 cm that could be combined in series and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">parallel</span> to achieve whatever voltage the particular car uses and combined in different physical configurations to fit virtually any available space.&nbsp; Incidentally, such batteries would find uses in a wide variety of other applications including power storage for the home.&nbsp; There would be a huge market for both new batteries and batteries which no longer had the capacity to be used in a vehicle.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Recycling</span><br />All components of the car must be designed to be completely recyclable. All parts will have a core charge just as is done with glass bottles and given back when the part is returned. This would ensure that worn out cars would not litter the environment. People who are too rich or too lazy to recycle their vehicles would find any number of people who would take the vehicles off their hands to recycle parts or to get the return fee.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lubrication</span><br />A great beauty of electric cars is not only that you save on fuel but also on lubricants. An electric car can be built today that needs no lubricant except perhaps a little 3 in 1 oil for the door hinges. Remember all the grease points we used to have to attend to at each service. These don't exist on modern cars.&nbsp; Electric cars do not have an oil sump.&nbsp; More saving of our too-valuable-to-burn fossil fuels.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reliability</span><br />Electric motors are so reliable that one could have a car quite soon that would last almost a lifetime. You would probably change the upholstery 4 or 5 times before the car wore out. Israel is about to convert to electric cars provided by Renault-Nissan with reticulation and battery exchange provided by Project Better Place. If successful, this will cause a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">paradigm</span> shift in the car market. A very attractive option is to for a new car builder to build a car with a battery that can be changed by Project Better Place stations*.<br /><br />&nbsp;*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It appears that the Project Better Place company has been bought and shelved.&nbsp; This smacks of interference by the oil or conventional car companies.&nbsp; They are fighting a rear guard action and will loose in the end.</i></span><br /><br />The world is ready for a simple affordable car. Renault is now building the Logan which already goes some way towards a "peoples car" and demand has <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">outstripped</span> anything the company expected. Of course it is a petrol car but they have tapped a market that they didn't know existed. Renault has been absolutely <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">amazed</span> by the response of the public in France. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Tata</span></span> in India has done the same. Obviously a simple car is not for everyone but all over the world there is a longing for simplicity, for having a smaller footprint on the world and for being able to look after yourself rather than having to depend on a specialist for all your needs. If Renault "keeps the faith" and isn't tempted to slowly turn the Logan into a conventional car, it will sweep the world. By the time other manufacturers wake up and smell the flowers, the Logan should have captured the imagination of the world and a huge chunk of its markets. How much more would a simple <i><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">electric</span></i> car capture our imagination.<br /><br /><b>Self Driving</b><br />No no no!&nbsp; I don't want a car that drives itself.&nbsp; I like driving.&nbsp; I certainly don't want my car connected to the world wide web.&nbsp; Have you any idea the vulnerabilities we are exposing ourselves to by putting all our activities into the hands of 'big brother'.&nbsp; How exposed we are to being hacked, not only by some 14 year old kid in his mom's basement but by government agencies.&nbsp; Give me a simple but well engineered car and if possible one that I can maintain myself.&nbsp; Make it highly recyclable.&nbsp; If as many scientists predict, we are heading for a collapse of our civilizations which will put us back at least into the dark ages, any idea how valuable an electric car will be, after the crash, that you charge at your own solar panels on your roof and that doesn't depend on a www that has collapsed.<br /><br /><b> </b><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And finally</span><br />If a car manufacturer does this, eventually it will have to down-size. Such a car will saturate even the world market and The Company will then be providing top up cars and parts. And ultimately, isn't this what we want: a much smaller car manufacturing sector, using less raw materials and energy and producing usable, long lasting cars for the public. We are just on the brink of an <a href="http://mtkass.blogspot.com/2008/07/arctic-melting-no-problem.html">ecological melt down</a> and must reduce our foot print on the world. We don't all want to be living the way the kids were in the winner of this year's (2009)Oscars*.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Slum Dog Millionaire </i></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>What is certain is that the car manufacturer that twigs on to this philosophy first will capture a huge share of the market.&nbsp; If this car comes from America, the world is their market.&nbsp; If it comes from some other country, America and the rest of the world is their market.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-64034786401238673612016-11-05T13:19:00.000-07:002016-11-10T02:32:27.916-08:00Some basic science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">If you want to&nbsp; to make sense of the weather, the climate and climate change, at the very least you need some basic science.&nbsp; As our education curriculum gets more and more crowded by IT and other subjects, many of these concepts are not being taught and they are interesting.&nbsp; Way back, when I was in High School, the basics were taught and became part of our core knowledge.&nbsp; (Sorry to sound like an old fart but I guess I am)&nbsp; So hear goes.&nbsp; No particular order.&nbsp; I will type them as I think of them.<br /><br /><b>Sensible Heat</b> (<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>as in 'to sense something' - not that the heat is somehow morally superior to some other unsensible type of heat</i></span>)<br /><br />This is the heat that it takes to raise the temperature of something or the heat that must be removed to cool something.&nbsp; The small calorie (with a small 'c') was defined as the amount of heat needed to raise one gram of water by one degree centigrade. &nbsp; There is also a large Calorie (with a capital 'C') which is the amount of heat to raise a kilogram of water by one degree.&nbsp; Clearly since there are 1000 grams in a kilogram, there are 1000small calories in one large Calorie. Incidentally, if you need to work in SI units, One calorie (small 'c') is equal to 4.1813 joules*.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A Joule is one watt second.&nbsp; In other words a watt (of electricity) acting for one second.&nbsp; If a one watt heater was immersed in a gram of water and operated for 4.183 seconds, it would heat the water (assuming no heat loss) by one degree C (or K if you like).</i></span><br /><br /><b>Latent Heat&nbsp;</b><br />I defined sensible heat first in order to make it easier to define Latent heat.<b> </b><br />Latent heat&nbsp; is the amount of heat needed to melt or evaporate a substance or conversely, the heat that must be removed to condense or freeze something. &nbsp;<b> </b><br />This is a core concept when talking about weather and for a whole range of other subjects.&nbsp; I'll use the old calorie units here because it makes the explanation easier.&nbsp; <br /><br />When you melt ice, it takes a lot of heat. Specifically 80cal (334j) per gram.&nbsp; This is the same amount of heat that would be needed to raise a gram of water from 0 degrees&nbsp;&nbsp; to 80 degrees C.&nbsp; Conversely, when water freezes, each gram gives out 80 calories.&nbsp; Some people ask; "so if heat is given out, doesn't that warm the water".&nbsp; No, but to a good first approximation, it keeps the water at zero degrees until all the water is frozen.&nbsp; Similarly, when you boil water, it stays at 100 degrees while the water is being boiled off.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat<br /><br /><br />The energy needed to change&nbsp; liquid water to water vapor is even greater.&nbsp; To evaporate one gram of water takes 532 cal (2264j) or enough heat to raise a gram of water from 0 degrees C to boiling 5 times over and then a bit.&nbsp; Of course, when water vapor condenses into a liquid this same 532cal is given out.<br /><br />Since we have these two, we can add them and find the heat of sublimation.&nbsp; This is the heat needed to change solid ice to a vapor directly without going through the liquid phase.&nbsp; This is 532+80 =&nbsp; 612cal (2598j) per gram of ice. <br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>As an interesting corollary* of this: if moist air blows across ice and the cooling of the air by the ice causes the water vapor to condense out as water, every kg of water condensed out of the air will melt 532/80 = 6.65 litres of water from the ice.&nbsp; Think of a moist foen wind blowing across Greenland for instance.</i></span><br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A corollary is something that results directly from some previous fact(s).&nbsp; Usually used in Math.</i></span><br /><br />If you look at the table in the link above, you will note that two substances, Ammonia and Water have much greater phase change energies (latent heat) than other substances in the table.&nbsp; The reason is of interest.<br /><br />You have probably heard of the experiment of Earnest Rutherford who worked out that atoms are not like plumb puddings but more like solar systems.&nbsp; Most of the mass is concentrated in the center and most of the rest of the atom is empty space.&nbsp; The solar model was an improvement as far as it went but later it was worked out that while the so called 's' sub orbits were pretty well circular, the 'p' sub-orbitals were dumb bell shaped. &nbsp; &nbsp; In water, the hydrogen attaches to the ends of two of these dumb bell sub orbits making the water molecule an angular shape.&nbsp; Move your thumb and index finger as far apart as you can and look at them.&nbsp; The Oxygen atom is located where your thumb and fore finger join and the hydrogen atoms are on the ends of the finger and thumb.<br /><br />The electrons spend much of their time around the oxygen atom leaving a naked proton at the other "end" of the molecule.&nbsp; Not only is the water molecule charged (positive at the Hydrogen side and negative at the Oxygen side) but there are no electron orbits closer to the hydrogen nucleus to keep other molecules away.&nbsp; A negative charge can get much closer to the Hydrogen end than with other atoms and hence the bond is stronger*.&nbsp; This is the famous Hydrogen bond.<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>In general, a force field decreases with the square of the distance from the object creating that field.&nbsp; </i></span><br /><br />This is the explanation why it takes so much energy to melt or evaporate H2O.&nbsp; The water molecules, because they have a positive and a negative side, cling together.&nbsp; This is also why their melting and vaporization temperatures are so high compared to other molecules of a similar molecular weight.<br /><br />Incidentally, if you want to visualize ammonia, spread your first two fingers and your thumb far apart.&nbsp; The Nitrogen atom is where they all meet with the three Hydrogen atoms on the ends of your fingers and thumb.&nbsp; Just like water, ammonia has a positive and a negative end (side) and the positive ends are naked hydrogen atoms (protons) and hence form the famous hydrogen bond.<br /><br />You might wonder how a molecule of water can leave the surface of the water and go into the air. After all, it is at the temperature of the water and the molecules cling together.&nbsp; It is a little like a rocket leaving the earth.&nbsp; It has to have enough energy to break free of gravity.&nbsp; The water molecule has to have enough energy to break free of the electrostatic attraction to other water molecules. The answer is that temperature is a measure of the average energy of the molecules As they bounce off each other, as long as energy is not being added or removed from the body of water, the average energy stays the same.&nbsp; However this is only an average.&nbsp; As they randomly bounce off each other, there will be some that have more velocity and some less.&nbsp; Some molecules on the surface will have enough energy to rocket into the air.<br /><br />Incidentally, this is the explanation why evaporating water cools the surface it is on.&nbsp; The energetic (hot) molecules leave, leaving behind the less energetic (cooler) molecules.&nbsp; They absorb heat from the surface they are on and in turn some of the energetic ones rocket into the air. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-was-avogadros-number/"><b>Avogadro's Number</b></a><br />Some genius worked out that a given volume of any gas at the same temperature and pressure contains the same number of molecules. (it wasn't Avogadro)&nbsp; Oxygen exists in the air as a molecule of two oxygens joined together as does hydrogen and nitrogen.&nbsp; This is rather convenient since if you know the molecular weight of any gaseous molecule, you know it's relative specific gravity (how heavy it is compared to other gases). <br /><b> </b><br />Hence, Oxygen has an atomic weight of 16 (rounded up), it's molecule is 32.&nbsp; Nitrogen is 14 so its molecular weight is 28 and water is 16 plus 2 equals 18.&nbsp; Air (very approximately) has a molecular weight of 30 (between Oxygen and Nitrogen*).&nbsp; Water vapor therefore has a density of 18/30 = 3/5th or 60% of air.&nbsp; Counter to what might think, a mix of air and water vapor (humid air) is&nbsp; lighter than dry air.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>I haven't taken into account that 4/5th of air is N and 1/5 is oxygen or the actual mollecular weight of the gasses.&nbsp; This would alter the calculation slightly.&nbsp; The above is what one calls a first approximation.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Note here that when you dissolve sugar or salt into water, the solute (solid) to some extent fits between the water molecules so the volume of the resulting solution is less than the volume of the original water plus the volume of the original solute.&nbsp; With gas this is not so.&nbsp; If you add a gas to an existing gas, it increases the volume</span><i> </i><span style="font-size: small;">by </span><span style="font-size: small;">exactly the amount that you added.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Temperature&nbsp;</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ignoring the Fahrenheit system that only a few primitive societies still use, the centigrade system is as follows. (conceptually - there are a few minor whichevers and we will have a look at them later).</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b>Using a thermometer, you mix ice and water and note where the liquid in the thermometer settles down.&nbsp; You make a mark and call this 0 degrees Centigrade.&nbsp; You then boil the water and once more make a mark where the liquid comes to in the shaft of the thermometer.&nbsp; You call this 100 degrees Centigrade.&nbsp; You divide the difference into 100 gradations.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Absolute Temperature</span></span></b><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Using the same gradations you go downward until you can't remove any more heat from whatever substance you are examining.&nbsp; You find that as low as you can go is about 273 degrees below the freezing point of ice.&nbsp; This is called absolute zero and is a point at which no more heat is held in the substance. In Kelvin,(the absolute system)&nbsp; the freezing point of water then becomes 273K and the boiling point of water 373K</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">A way of getting a first estimate of absolute temperature is to cool a gas and note its volume as you hold the pressure constant.&nbsp; Draw a graph.&nbsp; Where the volume goes to zero is a good first approximation of absolute zero. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">How about the whichevers.&nbsp; First then a word on isotopes.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Isotopes&nbsp;</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The nucleus of atoms contains positively charged protons and no charge neutrons.&nbsp; The neutrons, somehow hold the protons together from flying apart. Don't ask me how.&nbsp; That is above my pay grade. The protons are all positively charged and you might remember from science that same charges repel each other.&nbsp; In any atom, there are approximately the same number of neutrons and protons.&nbsp; This is not quite correct and becomes a little less so for the heavier atoms but it is a fair first approximation.&nbsp; A given element, let's say Carbon, always has six protons.&nbsp; This is why it is carbon or to be more accurate, it has the same number of electrons as protons and 6 electrons results in the physical and chemical properties that we know as carbon.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, within limits, it can have various numbers of neutrons.&nbsp; Carbon can have 6, 7 or 8 neutrons and hence Carbon 12, Carbon 13 and Carbon 14.&nbsp; Carbon 12 and 13 are stable but Carbon 14 is not.&nbsp; If you have an atom of Carbon 14 it will at some point fly apart.&nbsp; You can't know when this will happen for any given atom but it has been observed that with large quantities, you know how much of the carbon 14 will break down in any period.&nbsp; It turns out that half will break down in 5730 years and half of the remaining half in another 5730 years and half of the remaining quarter in another 5730 years.&nbsp; This makes it very useful for dating organic material and I will explain this later and give you the math needed to date objects.&nbsp; It is not difficult.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">You might wonder why there is not an equal amount of Carbon 12 as 13 if both are stable.&nbsp; I don't know.&nbsp; Carbon 12 is far more prevalent.&nbsp; Perhaps for some reason more Carbon 12 is produced in super novas that carbon 13.&nbsp; If someone knows, put a note on the bottom of this&nbsp; blog.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Most elements have a number of isotopes and some are stable and some are not.&nbsp; The unstable ones have half lives which vary in the different elements from miliseconds to millions and millions of years.&nbsp; It is not always the heavier that is the most unstable.&nbsp; For instance Uranium 235 is less stable than U238. Apparently certain configurations are in a sweet spot.&nbsp; The search carries on to find trans-uranic elements which have sweet spots.</span></span><br /><br /><b>So back to Temperature</b><br />Water can be made from any of the isotopes of Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen has three isotopes, namely ordinary hydrogen with one proton in the nucleus, Deuterium with one proton and one neutron in the nucleus and, you guessed it, Tritium with one proton and two neutrons.<br /><b> </b><br />Oxygen has three isotopes, O16, 17 and 18.&nbsp; Since she has 8 protons, these isotopes have 8, 9 and 10 neutrons in the nucleus.&nbsp; In this case, O16 is the stable one. (often although not always, the lighter one is the stable one.) So what does this mean.<br /><br />If the lightest Hydrogens reacted with the lightest Oxygen, you would have a molecule with 18 nucleons.&nbsp; This is as light as water can get.&nbsp; If the heaviest of both linked up you could have a water molecule with 24 nucleons.&nbsp; Since virtually all the weight of an atom is due to the nucleons, you can have a wide range of weights.&nbsp; Say for a first approximation that all the atoms in the water you are using to establish your thermometer have the same energy.&nbsp; To have the same energy, the lighter molecules are moving faster. (energy is equal to half the mass times the velocity squared) so they will more likely have escape velocity if they find themselves at the surface of the water.&nbsp; So what happens.<br /><br />The light molecules fly off preferentially leaving the heavier molecules and as you continue to boil the water, the temperature rises.&nbsp; The reverse is also true. The heavier molecules of water condense more easily (at a higher temperature) than the lighter ones.<br /><br />This, of course, makes the calibration of a thermometer a tad difficult as the boiling point of water (if you want to be picky and scientists are very picky) keeps changing as you boil it.&nbsp; Of added difficulty, some sources of water have slightly different proportions of isotopes than others. &nbsp; <br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Boyls Laws</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">These are pretty simple and also come from observation. &nbsp; Simply stated they are as follows.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you increase the pressure on a volume of gas, the volume decreases.&nbsp; If you double the pressure you half the volume.&nbsp; Nature could have given us some other relationship between pressure and volume.&nbsp; Isn't it nice that it is such a simple relationship.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you heat up a gas, its volume increases.&nbsp; Here though, we are talking about absolute temperature.&nbsp; If you double the absolute temperature, you double the volume. (if the pressure is kept constant). Again, nice that nature provides such a simple relationship.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">For instance if you were to raise the temperature of a gas from the freezing point of water to the boiling point of water you would increase its volume by 373/273 or by about 1.366 times.&nbsp; (that is why I told you about absolute temperature first).</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Coriolis</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The earth is about 25000 miles around its equator.&nbsp; It rotates on its axis once a day. &nbsp;<b> </b>Hence if you are standing on the equator you are traveling at about 1000miles per hour eastward.&nbsp; If you were standing on one of the poles, you would rotate once per day but are moving at 0 miles per hour (we are in an earth reference frame).&nbsp; Of course the earth is moving through space and you with it but that is neither here or there for this example).&nbsp; If you fire a cannon ball northward from the equator in the northern hemisphere, In addition to its northward velocity, it is traveling sideways toward the East at 1000mph.&nbsp; It will still be traveling toward the East as it flies through the air but the ground over which it flies is traveling slower and slower, the further north you go.&nbsp; Looked at from above, the object veers to the right in relationship to the earth below.&nbsp; As you can see, the effect is greater, the further north you go.&nbsp; If you go from the equator to a degree north of the equator, the sideways velocity hardly changes.&nbsp; If you go from one degree south of the North Pole to the North Pole, the change in velocity is large.&nbsp; The same occurs when you move something southward in the Northern Hemisphere.&nbsp; It veers to the right.&nbsp; This effect has some profound implications on our weather.</span></span><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Radioactive dating</span></span></b><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">As I mentioned, radioactive isotopes break down into simpler atoms.&nbsp; Certain proportions of protons and neutrons in the nucleus are not stable.&nbsp; It was observed fairly early on that if you measure the time it takes for half of the radioactive isotope to break down, then half of the remaining will break down in the same time, half of what remains in the same time and so forth.&nbsp; This is called the half life.&nbsp; I'll use Carbon as the example since it is valuable for the dating of organic material. Carbon 14 has a half life of 5730 years.&nbsp; You might ask, if it has a half life so short in comparison with the age of the earth, how come there is any of it around now.&nbsp; Also, you would have to know how much was in a living organism when it died in order to measure how much there is now and use these two figures to date it.&nbsp; The answer is rather neat.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Carbon 14 is continually being produced in the upper atmosphere by an atomic reaction.&nbsp; When high energy cosmic rays hit Nitrogen 14, some of it is converted into Carbon 14.&nbsp; To a first approximation (more of this later) its rate of production has been constant over time.&nbsp; Living organisms incorporate carbon into their bodies throughout their lives but when they die, no more is taken in.&nbsp; The Carbon clock starts and if you can measure the proportion of Carbon 14 in relation to "ordinary" carbon, you can tell the age of the artifact.&nbsp; Now for the math. C<sub>o</sub> is the amount of carbon in the artifact (piece of wood) at time zero.&nbsp; That is to say, when the wood died and stopped taking up carbon.&nbsp; C<sub>t</sub> is the amount of carbon at time 't'.&nbsp; That is to say when you took the artifact and decided to measure it.&nbsp; 1/2 is just what it says.&nbsp; One half.&nbsp; and 'n' is the number of half lives that have gone by so we have the formula.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">C<sub>t</sub>=C<sub>0</sub> X (1/2)<sup>n</sup>. Also written in algebra without the times sign as C<sub>t</sub>=C<sub>o</sub>(1/2)<sup>n</sup></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Lets look at this.&nbsp; Suppose you start with 8 grams of a radioactive element and one half life has gone by.&nbsp; You raise 1/2 to the first power which leaves it as 1/2 and multiply by 8.&nbsp; Answer 4 grams.&nbsp; Suppose two half lives have gone by.&nbsp; You raise 1/2 to the second power (multiply 1/2 by 1/2) and you get one quarter.&nbsp; Multiply this times 8 grams and you have two grams.&nbsp; Let's do one more.&nbsp; Three half lives have gone by.&nbsp; You raise 1/2 to the third power (multiply 1/2 times 1/2 times 1/2) to get 1/8.&nbsp; Multiply 1/8 times 8 and you get one gram.&nbsp; So this formula works.&nbsp; Now let's make it a little more sophisticated.&nbsp; We will define 't' as the time that has gone by and 'h' as the half life of the isotope we are working on.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Clearly the number of half lives that have gone by equals t/h. Say the half life of an isotope is 10 years and 30 years have gone by.&nbsp; Clearly three half lives have gone by.&nbsp; In other words n = 30/10.&nbsp;&nbsp; We can now substitute this into our first formula.&nbsp; Where we had n we will put t/h so C<sub>t</sub> = C<sub>0</sub> x 1/2<sup>(t/h)</sup>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;Now we have the formula in what I call the forward or straight forward form. In other words in the form that is easily understood, we can now "solve for" any of the terms. In other words make t or n or C<sub>o</sub> the subject of the formula. If you remember your algebra, since the right side is equal to the left side, as long as I do exactly the same to both sides, the formula will still be valid. I could multiply both sides by some number, square or take the square root of both sides and so forth.&nbsp;&nbsp; The trick, of course,&nbsp; is to choose the correct thing to do to both sides to get the term I want as the subject of the formula.&nbsp; Why bother. Well, sometimes I might want to work out the age of the artifact 't' or the half life of an isotope 'h' so it is useful to change the formula around to make the desired factor the subject of the formula.&nbsp; Of course to work out 't' or 'h' I would have to know the value of the other terms in the equation.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Let's solve for 't', the time that has gone by.&nbsp; Then we will have a formula we can use for dating an artifact.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I start with the formula C<sub>t</sub> = C<sub>o</sub> x (1/2)<sup>t/h</sup></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I divide both sides by C<sub>o</sub> resulting in</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">C<sub>t</sub>/C<sub>o</sub> = 1/2<sup>(t/h)</sup></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now you will have to take my word that the following identity is correct.&nbsp; To explain logs at this point would take a tad too long.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">log<sub>A</sub>B<sup>C</sup> (log to the base A of B to the Cth power) = C x log<sub>A</sub>B (C times log to the base A of B).&nbsp; In other words, you can put the exponent before the log and the value remains the same. &nbsp; So first we will take the log of both sides.&nbsp; You don't have to understand logarithms but only the principle that if we do the same to both sides of an equation, the formula is still correct.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Log<sub>10</sub>(Ct/Co) = log<sub>10</sub>1/2<sup>(t/h)</sup>&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Using the conversion (moving the exponent, (t/h) in front of the term on the right side, I get:</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Log<sub>10</sub> (Ct/Co) = (t/h) log<sub>10</sub>(1/2)</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now to get t by itself, I simply divide both sides by (log<sub>10</sub>((1/2)) and multiply both sides by h to get: t=hlog<sub>10</sub>(Ct/Co) / log<sub>10</sub>1/2</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I said that this was a first approximation.&nbsp; It was seen that the value obtained for objects of known age differed slightly from the theoretical value.&nbsp; For instance, in the high mountains of America is a species of tree known as the Bristle Cone Pine. As with many trees it has growth rings and live trees have been found that are 5000 years old.&nbsp; In addition, in the area, there is dead wood which with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology">Dendrochronology</a> can take the age back another 5000 years.&nbsp; Carefully shaving off individual growth rings and carbon dating them showed a small variance from the theoretical value.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The best explanation for this is that the rate of C14 production has not been exactly the same over time.&nbsp; Cosmic rays come from violent events in the universe and have varied over time.&nbsp; What is good, though, is with the application of this correction, the age of artifacts of known age slotted into place. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-21054847390200613012016-10-22T12:30:00.003-07:002016-10-22T12:51:17.555-07:00Training and job creation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">While I was lighting the log burner this morning, I paused to read an article on a paper I was using to start the fire.&nbsp; The article was on the connection between training and jobs.&nbsp; The article suggested that all that is needed to get the unemployed working is to give them the appropriate training.&nbsp; Fine as far as it goes but it is missing the point by a country mile.<br /><br />As long as there are no jobs to go to, all we create is some better qualified out-of-work people or people who will leave the country to somewhere that jobs exist or remain in the country, drawing welfare and assaulting their wives and children from the frustration of not being able to provide for them.<br /><br />Here in New Zealand, we have been both throwing away existing jobs and ignoring obvious measures we could take to create jobs. &nbsp; I'm pretty sure what the motivation is but more of that later.&nbsp; Let's examine some concrete examples.<br /><br /><b>Our Fisheries</b><br />You would think that a sophisticated, modern country like New Zealand would fish her own waters. &nbsp;<b> </b>We have one of the largest Exclusive Economic Zones in the world and definitely one of the largest in relation to the size of our country. Only a couple of the Island nations of the Pacific have larger economic zones in relation to their size and none come near to the absolute size of New Zealand's economic zone.&nbsp; Instead, of looking after this vast resource, what do we do.<br /><br />We allow foreign fishing boats to fish in our waters, many of them from Korea,&nbsp; employing desperate workers from third world countries.&nbsp; The abuses of these workers by their Korean officers have been an ongoing scandal in New Zealand and there is a case in our courts at present with a couple of confiscated boats been held until the Korean fishing companies pay the wages promised to their workers.&nbsp; The treatment of these indentured workers has been beyond belief.&nbsp; The ones that dare to talk, have told&nbsp; of workers even being killed and tossed overboard.<br /><br />The New Zealand government in her usual fashion has put a sticking plaster on the problem and insisted that all boats that fish in our waters must be registered in New Zealand.&nbsp; Cameras have been installed in some, but far from all, boats.&nbsp; In cases where the cameras have shown violations, they have been completely ignored by the government.<br /><br />We even had an observer on one of the most abusive boats and somehow, her information never got to the appropriate officials or they ignored what she said. <br /><br />And do you think that these foreign fishing boats look after the fisheries resources of New Zealand.&nbsp; Of course not.&nbsp; The first of these boats that was revealed to be treating her workers abysmally was later found to have caught a particularly valuable net of fish and so jettisoned her already frozen catch to make room for the more valuable fish.<br /><br />And do we really think that they land all their fish in New Zealand as is required by the New Zealand regulations.&nbsp; Pleeeese.&nbsp; Give me a break.<br /><br />We are in danger of following the Canadian example.&nbsp; On the Grand banks off the coast of&nbsp; Newfoundland, the Canadian Fisheries Department, one of the most sophisticated in the world, cow-towed to crass commercial short term interests and allowed that legendary fisheries to be destroyed.<br /><br />&nbsp;If we restricted fishing to our boats, the fishing pressure would lessen, stocks would increase and our own fishing boats would find a very nice increase in their catch-per-unit-effort.&nbsp; In other words, their boats would be more commercially viable. Politicians are not expected to be fisheries experts but at least they could listen to those that are.&nbsp; At least they could show a little simple common sense.<br /><br /><b>Our Rail Stock</b><br />New Zealand has entered into an upgrade of our railways including engines and other rolling stock.&nbsp; What a great move in an era in which we must reduce our output of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.&nbsp; Even if these are diesel engines, their output of Carbon dioxide per ton-kilometer of goods moved is far below that of trucks.&nbsp; When we use electricity to power our engines the reduction is truly amazing.&nbsp; New Zealand generates about 70% of her electricity renewably and rising*<br /><br />*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>note that in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/04/people-prefer-living-near-wind-turbines-to-fracking-wells-survey">recent extensive poll</a> in the UK, 73% of the population, both rural and urban, said they were very much in favor of on shore wind turbines while at the same time the government promotes nuclear and fracking.&nbsp; Something rotten in the state of UK here.&nbsp; I bet our stats would be similar.</i></span><br /><br /><b> </b><br />We could eventually go the extra mile and have containers, carried by rail, delivered to their end destination by electric trucks.<br /><br />So what do we do.&nbsp; We contract to have the rolling stock built overseas.&nbsp; The NZ Rail workshop in Dunedin and the city of Dunedin commissioned a report by the BERL institute to calculate if this would be a good thing to do.&nbsp; The bottom line of the report was that with all the spin offs to the New Zealand economy, we would have to be able to obtain the rolling stock for 38% of the local cost before it would be worthwhile to buy them overseas.&nbsp; Think taxes going into the exchequer from all the workers in the NZ rail workshop and all the sub contractors, Reduced welfare payments for people now not out of work, efficient repair and maintenance and so forth.<br /><br />But the spin offs would have gone far beyond this.&nbsp; Our manufacturing industry would have had to upgrade her construction techniques, electronic capability and a whole range of other skills to make modern rolling stock.&nbsp; All this added capacity would have spun off into other industries.&nbsp; Who knows.&nbsp; We might have even eventually started to produce The Affordable Electric Car, called, of course, the Kiwi.<br /><br />Mind you, we mustn't be too starry eyed about our own KiwiRail workshops.&nbsp; I live in a railway town and some of the old timers tell of the incredible abuses of their position that occurred some of the workshops with engineers using the equipment during working hours for their own businesses, not turning up for work but getting paid and so forth.&nbsp; I have no idea if such practices were common recently but it is hard to get back a reputation lost.<br /><br /><b>Our Lumber Industry</b><br />We have just had a massive (in terms of the damage it did) earthquake that trashed Christchurch.&nbsp; In the early days of Christchurch, there were some tremors and people built as best they could at the time to survive earthquakes.&nbsp; However as usually happens, we forgot or thought, somehow in one of the most seismically active countries of the world, it wouldn't happen again.&nbsp; We started to build with unreinforced masonry.&nbsp; The inevitable happened.&nbsp; When a relatively small earthquake happened right at the south of Christchurch where the flat meets the banks peninsula (an extinct volcano), the vertical acceleration was an incredible 2g and buildings fell right and left.&nbsp; What an opportunity.<br /><br /><b> </b><br />The most resilient material to rebuild the city is engineered wood.&nbsp; That is to say, laminated beams for the skeleton and engineered wood cladding for much of the rest.&nbsp; In Vancouver Canada, I saw a 7 story building going up, completely of wood.&nbsp; What an opportunity.&nbsp; We could then have been levering off this experience to send custom engineered wood to other earthquake prone countries to build or rebuild their structures.&nbsp; Instead what do we do.<br /><br />We sell our raw logs to China and receive value added products made from our own wood back from them.&nbsp; Our mills have been closing in droves and we hardly have an industry left compared to what once was.<br /><br />Incidentally, China has an interesting "ploy" she uses in this and other industries.&nbsp; I can't swear that it is done on purpose or if it is just the way things&nbsp; happen but here it is how it unfolds in relations to our lumber industry. Put milk powder, meat or any other commodity in place of logs in the following paragraph and you are pretty well on the money.<br /><br />China has huge monetary reserves from selling their goods to America and other countries.&nbsp; This money is devaluing from day to day and is likely to crash at some point.&nbsp; America is deeply in debt, a highly corrupt society and if they loose their status as the holder of the world's reserve currency, the dollar will plunge in value.&nbsp; China knows this and wants to trade this ephemeral wealth for solid value.&nbsp; She pays top dollar for our logs and of course, is competing with our local industries.&nbsp; It is a free market so, of course, our loggers sell the logs where they can get the best price.&nbsp; This causes our whole down stream wood industry to collapse.&nbsp; Then what happens.<br /><br />China, generously proposes to build a large modern lumber mill in New Zealand and of course ensures by doing so, a vertically integrated supply of wood for her country in which she can take the profits in China instead of New Zealand.&nbsp; And we are immensely grateful to them for doing this. (this is not what might happen, it is already happening).&nbsp; Ditto with milk products.<br /><br />These are just three examples but you can see the trend.&nbsp; What we need is a government with concern for the bulk of her citizens and a vision that extends to more than a 4 year election cycle.</div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0